Thoughts on My Time as Interim Editor-in-Chief

Abstract

For me, the call informing me that my good friends Roger and Mary Brumback were murdered is in the category of those events that you remember forever where you were when you heard the news, much like the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. I had met Roger at the University of Oklahoma in 1986 and became his ‘‘Senior Associate Editor’’ in 1987. There were some lean times at the beginning of the life of the Journal of Child Neurology but Roger was always a tremendous positive force for the journal and we both had confidence in the eventual success of the effort to establish the journal. Being the Senior Associate Editor for the past 20 years, after the survival of the journal was established, has been ‘‘a piece of cake’’ because the day-to-day operations were almost entirely performed by Dr Brumback himself. The fact that the journal was approaching a watershed point was only just on my radar but there were plans to increase the number of issues published each year and to initiate an open-access sister journal to the Journal of Child Neurology in the near future. I became acutely aware of the fact that I knew only the rudiments of the plans when Roger was killed and I was thrust into the role of the Interim Editor in Chief of the Journal of Child Neurology. The 25 years I enjoyed the title of Senior Associate Editor made me the natural choice to step in as the Interim Editor until a permanent editor could be found but I was woefully unprepared for the task. To say that Roger was a hands-on editor fails to convey the degree to which he exerted control over the entire production of the journal. Roger not only did almost everything himself but, I might add, did a remarkable job of it as well. This fact, of course, made it somewhat difficult to step into the editor’s job. I spent several weeks learning how to perform the fundamentals of the day-to-day operation of the journal, a task I could not have accomplished without the constant help of Barb Gilligan, who had served as Roger’s editorial assistant for several years and Courtney Pugh from the editorial staff at Sage Publications. I have only now begun to feel comfortable with the process of identifying appropriate reviewers, monitoring the review and revision process, reviewing proofs, and reviewing the proposed table of contents for upcoming issues. I am now at the end of my tenure as Interim Editor in Chief of the Journal of Child Neurology. I think Dr Marc Patterson will be a superb Editor for the journal as we go forward. I believe we have made the transition as smoothly as possible, under the circumstances, and I also feel the journal has survived the gap between the Editors largely intact. I am not as skilled as Roger was; however, the members of the Editorial Board, and the many reviewers that I have called on to perform above and beyond the usual requirements are the ones who deserve the credit for the maintenance of the journal during the transition. I wish to thank them all and wish the Journal of Child Neurology continued success as it grows and changes to meet the needs of the Child Neurology community in these very challenging times. Thanks to Barb Gilligan, Courtney Pugh, and all of the many individuals who have helped us get to this point. Sincerely,