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| Victor J. Bernet, MD Secretary/Chief Operating Officer |
Secretary's Update
May 2018
For this month's SIGNAL eNEWS message, I thought it would be worthwhile to review the history of our ATA® publications. I bet for many of our members, they cannot remember a time when Thyroid® was not the journal of the American Thyroid Association®. But with the ATA® being born in 1923 and with Thyroid® being only on its 28th volume, one can easily surmise that the journal Thyroid is actually a relative newcomer in the history of the ATA. It may surprise some but the relationship between the journal Thyroid and the ATA almost never came to be. In ~1990 our publisher Mary Ann Liebert approached the ATA secretary, Leonard Wartofsky and ATA president, John Wilber, about the potential of the ATA sponsoring the new journal Thyroid as its official association journal. An ad hoc publications committee, chaired by Ralph Cavalieri, cautiously endorsed the concept in January 1991, discussion was held at the business meeting during the 10th ITC in The Hague, Netherlands, and two complimentary journals were published and distributed, under the editorship of Jerry Hershman. Ralph Cavalieri, who became ATA President at the Boston meeting in 1991, then provides some history in official association correspondence that a membership vote by mail ballot to sponsor Thyroid as the official journal of the ATA, to include mandatory subscriptions, passed 118 in favor and 91 votes against. A surprisingly close vote knowing the success of Thyroid by today's view!
In 1990, the first issue (Vol. 1, No. 1) was published with Len Wartofsky acting as the Special Guest Editor, devoted to the many accomplishments of Sidney H. Ingbar. In 1991, 4 issues and a supplement were published. Paul (Pepper) Davis was named Chair of the ad hoc ATA Publication Committee. The first publications contract was signed between the ATA and Mary Ann Liebert, publishers, Inc. (MAL) in 1992. Jerome Hershman served very capably as EIC from 1990-1999 (and as ATA President in 1992-1993) with Thyroid's reputation growing under his thoughtful shepherding. The journal went from a quarterly to monthly publication in 1998. Terry Davies followed as the next EIC between 2000-2007. As Peter Kopp mentions in his excellent editorial in Thyroid 23(1) in 2013, Terry's thought provoking editorials were very much appreciated. During his tenure Thyroid continued to mature, became available online and adopted a web-based manuscript processing system. Our current ATA President, Charles Emerson, then succeeded as Thyroid EIC (2008-2012). With Charles' steady hand, the impact factor began to gradually rise and Thyroid achieved both a regular global readership and authorship. Of course, Peter Kopp is the present EIC of Thyroid. Peter has thoughtfully built on previous work and focused the journal on a combination of original peer-reviewed clinical and basic science research, cutting-edge reviews and authoritative guidelines. Thyroid's impact factor has continued to rise under Peter's leadership and is 5.515 which notably outstrips that of JCEM for the same time period.
Discussions at the 2012 ATA Strategic Conference led by John Morris as Sec/COO, with assistance from our consultant for that meeting Morna Conway, led to leadership considering how the ATA might augment our publication presence. This led to Clinical Thyroidology® being converted from an in house publication to one being published and marketed for ATA by MAL and the creation of a new video based journal VideoEndocrinology™.
For its first 13 years of existence Clinical Thyroidology (CT) was not an ATA publication. Ridha Arem, the founding editor of CT, intended it as a vehicle to keep those interested in the field of thyroidology informed of new research while also providing commentary about the study and related findings, and he served as EIC until 2000. Financial support for CT came first from Daniels Pharmaceutical Company and later Jones Pharma, Inc. which then transferred CT ownership to the ATA and continued financial support for a period of time. CT was first published as an ATA journal in March 2001 with Robert Utiger serving as EIC between 2001 - 2007. Bob made a point that the focus of CT was to summarize and give commentary about interesting articles with the intent that readers would go on to review the actual articles themselves in order to make their own conclusions about the findings. CT was initially published quarterly and became a monthly publication in 2009 being initially mailed to members and available for download off the ATA website. Ernest Mazzaferri was CT EIC between 2008 – 2010 followed by Jerry Hershman in 2011. All of CT's EICs have made substantive contributions to furthering the content of CT and it remains an extremely popular publication regularly read by ATA members and is available for download from the MAL website.
VideoEndocrinology (VE) represents a joint venture between MAL and the ATA. VE publishes high-quality peer-reviewed videos of cutting-edge surgical and diagnostic images covering thyroid, parathyroid and other endocrine related surgical procedures. While the content of VE does extend outside the realm of thyroidology much of the content is relevant to thyroid surgery and the additional content is of great interest to many of our members practicing in the field of surgery. Gerard (Jerry) Doherty was the founding EIC and responsible for ensuring a successful launch to the new journal. The journal appears to have a growing viewership with 10,757 downloads being achieved for 2017. In January 2018, William (Barry) Inabnet assumed duties as VE EIC. Barry is looking to expand the content and submitting contributors to VE and expects to build upon the solid foundation achieved under Jerry's leadership.
Clinical Thyroidology for the Public (CTFP), previously named Clinical Thyroidology for the Patient, summarizes selected research studies discussed in the previous month's issue of Clinical Thyroidology. CTFP started publication in August 2008. Ernest Mazzaferri acted as the first EIC and CTFP has been capably lead by Alan Farwell as EIC since 2009. Currently, CTFP goes to over 13,023 patients, public and physicians on a monthly basis.
SIGNAL eNEWS is this monthly newsletter emailed to Association members and covers Association news, meetings, policies, leaders, and important thyroid-related issues.
Fast approaching is the 88th Annual Meeting of the ATA to be held from 3 -7 October, 2018 in Washington, DC. It appears that we will have a record number of abstracts presented at the meeting this year and the Program Committee with Chairs Mabel Ryder and Greg Randolph appear to have organized a really wonderful program. Please note two new offerings: the 1st Annual ATA Advanced Practice Providers (APP) Satellite Symposium so please make any of the APPs in your practice aware of this educational offering, as well as membership in the ATA: and the Latin American International Satellite Symposium. Other offerings in addition to the main meeting venue include the 2nd ATA Pediatric Satellite Symposium and the Ridgway Trainee Conference with offerings for clinical, surgical and basic science trainees. Please note that the Early Bird Registration deadline is soon approaching being Monday, 18 June , 2018. We look forward to seeing you in D.C. in October!
Victor J. Bernet, MD
Secretary/Chief Operating Officer
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