Ten years ago, the Journal of Gastrointestinal Surgery (JOGS) launched its first issue in January, 1997 amid a storm of controversy. The contrarians within the Society for Surgery of the Alimentary Tract (SSAT) protested, “We don’t need another surgical journal. We already have too many. The ones we have meet our needs satisfactorily.” The supporters countered, “We need our own journal devoted to gastrointestinal surgery, one owned by the Society, a journal that will meet the needs of our members and of all surgeons in our country who practice gastrointestinal surgery, the largest segment of practice among the many general surgeons in the United States. The American College of Surgeons alone has 48,132 general surgeons among its current members. Moreover, the journal will reach out to surgeons practicing gastrointestinal surgery around the world.” The discussion was vigorous at the Meeting of the SSAT Board of Trustees in October, 1995. The final vote came down in favor of a new journal. The name of the journal was quickly chosen, the coeditors were appointed, an editorial board established, and a contract signed with a publisher, Quality Medical Publishing, Inc. of St. Louis, MO, USA. Issue 1 of volume 1 appeared on time in January, 1997, as did the five other issues that year, and as have all subsequent issues over the last 10 years. The first issue was 96 pages in length. The issue contained two editorials, a review article, eight original scientific papers presented at the 1996 annual meeting of the SSAT, commentaries on those papers, three additional original scientific papers, and an obituary. A total of 596 pages were published in the six issues of volume 1. Of the 70 original scientific papers published that year, 81% were from the United States and 19% from foreign countries. Clinical papers comprised 61% of the total papers published and basic science papers 39%. The number of issues remained at six per year in volumes 1 through 5, but the number of pages increased by 18% from 596 pages in volume 1 to 706 pages in volume 5. A new publisher, Elsevier, Inc., New York, NY, was recruited towards the end of year 5. The number of issues remained at six in volume 6, but the number increased to eight in volumes 7 and 8, and to nine in volume 9. By the time volume 9 was published the number of pages published per year had nearly doubled to 1,405 compared to the 596 pages of volume 1. A “How I Do It” section, a “Gastrointestinal Images” section, book reviews, guidelines for practice, supplements, announcements, abstracts from the American Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Association (AHPBA) and the International Society for Digestive Surgery (ISDS) meetings, and letters to the editor had been added to the journal’s material by this time. Also, the percent of clinical papers appearing in volume 9 had increased compared to that of volume 1. Clinical papers comprised 90% of the 152 scientific papers published in 2005, whereas only 10% were basic science papers. In addition, only 50% of the papers were from the United States, with the other 50% from foreign nations. Clearly, the journal had become more clinical and more international in J Gastrointest Surg (2007) 11:1–2 DOI 10.1007/s11605-006-0083-x