In 2009, Dr. Jerold Lucey stepped down as editor-in-chief of Pediatrics after serving in that role for 35 years, half of our journal’s 70 years of publication. This past year, Dr. Lucey passed away, but left a legacy for our journal that our editorial board and its leadership have been charged to carry on, and carry on we have This year marks the tenth year we have been at the helm moving the journal forward in ways that reach not just the nearly 70,000 members of the AAP who receive Pediatrics as a member benefit, but the more than 10 million visitors to our online monthly issues who visited our journal more than 60 million times in the past year. What has helped trigger our growth in readership and in the dissemination of our published studies through citations in other studies, mainstream and social media? The answer lies in our listening closely to your many suggestions and ideas that have helped expand our journal’s content and in turn its accessibility.
In fact, it is the input of you, our readers, throughout the year, and in turn the past decade, that we believe is the key reason we can continue to introduce new ideas to further our journal’s mission. To demonstrate how that input has affected our journal in just the past year, we offer a commentary written by the editorial leadership team (10.1542/peds.2018-3344) that highlights new features introduced in just the past 12 months, and previews additional changes planned for the year ahead. New additions like “Family Partnerships,” “Video Abstracts,” and even awarding CME credits for reviewers to name but a few would not have been possible if you, the readers, had not suggested we go in these directions, and the measures of their effectiveness are highlighted in the commentary. We hope you will check out the ongoing improvements we highlight in this commentary, and that you will continue to let us know what will make our journal an even better publication when it comes to advancing the health of infants, children, teenagers, and young adults in the years ahead. Happy 70th anniversary to Pediatrics! Here’s to many, many more!
