For those of you that may not know the history of our journal, it may be of interest to recount its beginnings. In 1977, Ramon Gustilo, Edwin Bovill, and Michael Chapman created the Orthopaedic Trauma Center Study Group. Over time, this morphed into the Orthopaedic Trauma Association, formally incorporated in 1985. This was a distinctly US group. Our society was just getting started and had limited funds. Dr Phillip Spiegel, MD, the Chairman of Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of South Florida in Tampa, felt that the society should have an official journal, but since the OTA could not afford this expense, he reached out to Kathy Alexander at Raven Press, and together, they founded the Journal as the official journal of the OTA in 1986, with 4 issues per year, starting in 1987. Ken Johnson at Vanderbilt published the lead article entitled: “Biomechanical Factors Affecting Fracture Stability and Femoral Bursting in Closed Intramedullary Nailing of Femoral Shaft Fractures”, which established the rationale for the piriformis starting point for femoral nailing.

I joined the faculty in Tampa in October 1987 and began working as a reviewer and then as an associate editor for the journal. After 10 years, in 1996, Dr Spiegel stepped down and I was named Editor-in-Chief. I was 42. I was tasked by Dr Spiegel, the OTA, and Raven Press to make JOT the leading journal in orthopaedic trauma both nationally and internationally. This was an awesome responsibility as our subspecialty was just emerging. There were minimal internet applications, everything was done by hand, and manuscripts and reviews were exchanged by the US postal service. I was always seen carrying a large briefcase filled with 10–12 printed manuscripts that I edited between cases and anywhere I could find free time. It was not until 2003 that Editorial Manager became available to us and web-based manuscript tracking became the preferred method of correspondence.

An explosion of techniques, implants, procedures, and scientific discoveries occurred during my tenure. Thirty years ago, we had limited fluoroscopy, unlocked, slotted IM nails, terrible fracture tables, no locking plates, no percutaneous techniques, minimal understanding of acetabular fractures, pelvic fractures, calcaneal fractures, and we were just understanding how to manage the polytraumatized patient. Professor Ilizarov had just come to the United States for the first time in 1987; BMP did not exist, and Masquelet techniques were unknown in the United States.

But over time, our specialty grew. The OTA became a significant force in the discipline that is now orthopaedic trauma. What most of our younger colleagues take for granted as the standard treatment of musculoskeletal trauma was developed during my time as Editor. I watched as new thinking, new leaders, new implants, new surgical procedures, and new methods of teaching and training were developed. My goal was simple, to disseminate as much of the latest information to our readership regardless of controversy, as long as the science was verifiable. But to accomplish this task, I required expertise in all the various aspects of our discipline including biomechanics, statistics, biology, infectious diseases, and general surgery. It was my good fortune to enlist the help of countless members of our and other specialties to become reviewers, editors, and authors, both nationally and later internationally. Over a 10-year period, we were able to grow the journal from 4 issues to a monthly journal. It should be obvious that without the assistance and passion of all these surgeons and scientists helping me, none of this would have been possible.

This turned out to be harder work than originally anticipated, but for me personally, it was a labor of love. Since 2003 (when we started using Editorial Manager), the journal received 14,512 manuscripts. That is 725 manuscripts annually, and 14 manuscripts a week for 20 years! During that time, we accepted 4238 manuscripts for publication. None of these were ever accepted at first pass, and many required multiple revisions including correcting grammar and syntax, organizational and statistical corrections, and a final reading for ease of understanding. As Editor-in-Chief, I read and edited every paper that was published. My family can attest to the amount of time required to accomplish this work.

For all of you that have participated in some way with the journal, I would be remiss if I did not thank Michele Zimmerman, our Managing Editor. She has been with me since 1996, and without her steady hand at the wheel, I would not have been able to accomplish the task required of me. To collate manuscripts, find reviewers, then manage all reviews, coordinate line-ups, find duplicate publications, assist with the table of contents, and work with the production staff, first with Raven, then Lippincott, and now Wolters-Kluwer, is an almost insurmountable task. Yet she has done this almost effortlessly in the background, and has made my job easier, and made me look good for many, many, years.

The journal is now the pre-eminent source for orthopaedic trauma because of our readers, reviewers, editors, and authors. I was fortunate to shepherd our journal through this journey for a long time. So now, after 28 years as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Orthopaedic Trauma, I am passing the job to Bill Ricci, MD. I know that in his capable hands the journal will continue to be the pre-eminent source of scientific and clinical information internationally for our discipline. To conclude, I would like to acknowledge everyone that has helped me “raise the bar” in making the journal and our subspecialty what it is today. Thank you all for allowing me to have played a small part in this journey of ours.