The American College of Physicians (ACP) was founded in 1915 to promote the science and practice of medicine. Dr. Archibald N. Sinclair of Honolulu was a nationally recognized expert on tuberculosis and because of his numerous contributions to the medical literature, he was honored by being admitted as a Fellow of the ACP. In 1927, he became the first Governor of the Hawai‘i Chapter of the ACP.
The second Governor of the ACP Hawai‘i Chapter was Dr. Harry L. Arnold, Sr. His son, Dr. Harry L. Arnold, Jr., was the first editor of the Hawai‘i Medical Journal, a publication of the Hawai‘i Medical Association, from 1941 and remained in that position for over forty years. The aim of “the Journal” was to provide new scientific information in a scholarly manner, with a focus on the unique, multicultural, and environmental aspects of the Hawaiian islands and Pacific Rim regions. Dr. S. Kalani Brady is the current and fifth editor of “the Journal” and has presided over the transition to the Hawai‘i Journal of Medicine and Public Health. He is also the immediate past Governor of the ACP Hawai‘i Chapter and thus continues the strong relationship between the ACP and “the Journal”.
The ACP Hawai‘i Chapter has been encouraging medical students and residents to submit and present original research at the Annual Chapter Meeting for over 30 years now. The quality and quantity of submissions have increased each year and at the January 2013 Meeting we had 66 abstracts submitted. All the peer reviewers agreed that the selection process was extremely difficult for those accepted for presentation at the Annual Meeting. Of these, selecting the winners in each category was, again, a very difficult process.
It was at a subsequent Council Meeting of the Chapter that Dr. Brady suggested that, with all the excellent material being presented at the Annual Chapter Meeting that we should share the work of these young future leaders of Medicine with the wider medical community by publishing a supplement to “the Journal”. This was enthusiastically and unanimously accepted. It was decided that the authors of the top ten highest scoring abstracts would be offered an opportunity to submit full-length manuscripts for publication. Some had already submitted their work to other publications and declined. We then made the offer to the next highest scoring abstract. In this way, seven were finally selected to be peer-reviewed and published in this supplement. The remaining abstracts are published in their original form.
And so, it is with the mission of the American College of Physicians “to promote the science and practice of medicine” and of the Hawai‘i Journal of Medicine and Public Health “to provide new, scientific information in a scholarly manner, with a focus on the unique, multicultural and environmental aspects of the Hawaiian islands and Pacific Rim regions,” that we present this Supplement.
Conflict of Interest
None of the authors report a conflict of interest.