Today, the Bulletin of Emergency AndTrauma (BEAT) celebrates its first anniversary. This is the result of the endeavors of the BEAT editorial team along with the great cooperation and collaboration of the international colleagues, scientists, clinicians and editors as well as the supports of the authors and the readers. The main idea of starting a journal in the field of trauma and emergency medicine came into existence about 2 years ago when several trauma surgeons and emergency medicine scientists gathered up in Shahid Rajaei Trauma center, the only level I trauma center in the southern Iran which provides special and sub-special healthcare services for the trauma patients. Currently, trauma is amongst the most common causes of mortality and morbidity in Iran [1, 2] and especially in Fars province [3, 4]. This obliged us to start research projects for better understanding and managing the protocols in a local and regional context. However the journal was started when we reached a high number of national and international publication rate in the fields of trauma and emergency medicine. With collaboration of several national and international institutions, organizations and societies such as Hungarian Trauma Society, Lusitanian Association for Trauma and Emergency Surgery (ALTEC/LATES) and Serbian Trauma Association, the BEAT was launched in January 2013 for the first time with the aim of providing an international forum for discussion, knowledge exchange and collaborations in the field of trauma and emergency medicine.
Fortunately, BEAT received national and international attention very soon and several reputable scientists joined the editorial team which increased the scientific merit of the journal. The submission rate increased dramatically after publication of the first issue. The peer-review process was fast-tract for all the submitted manuscripts and was conducted in a single-blind way by influential reviewers and scientists which resulted in publication in high quality papers. Many international editorial board members also attended the sessions during congresses held by the center and shared their invaluable experiences and suggestions (Figure 1). Precise review process, time-oriented publication and publication of high quality applied papers resulted in fast indexing of BEAT into many international indexes including ICMJE (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors), NLM Catalog (National Library of Medicine/ USA), Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Magiran, Google Scholar, Academic Journals Database, SID (Scientific Information Database), ISC (Islamic World Science Citation Center), Index Copernicus, Index Medicus (WHO/ EMRO) and etc. The number of citations increased from the second issue and the Obecny status 2012 was reported to be 5.09 as reported by Index Copernicus which is very favorable. BEAT has also been accredited by the Iranian Commission of Medical Sciences at the Ministry of Health and Education as a Research- Scientific Journal and awarded the Academic Rank of the ministry.
Fig.1.
Editorial team of Bulletin of Emergency And Trauma (BEAT), February 2013
All these could not come true without endeavors and assistance of the editorial team, reviewers, authors and the readers who contributed to the journal to a great extent. Now, after 1 year of publication, new horizons come up. Increased number of submission enables us to increase the number of published high quality papers and also to increase the sections of each issue so that the readers could read the articles of their own filed of interest. Indexing in major international databases such as PubMed Central, Medline and Scopus would be the next step. In the way for reaching more scientists, we would involve several other trauma societies in the journal so that we can use their experience and suggestions for improvement of the journal. We would like to acknowledge the cooperation of all the contributors of the journal and ask for continuing this valuable contribution. There is a long way to go, but as far as we have your hands in ours, we would go further with confidence and reassurance. Thank you for being with us!
Conflict of Interest: None declared.