I learned two new words the other day: “anabasis” and “apotheosis.”
One of our new cardiology fellows (we have very erudite fellows) gave me a copy of Arrian's Anabasis of Alexander, which is probably the most comprehensive account of the adult life of Alexander the Great. So, of course, I had to find out what “anabasis” is: “the advance of an army, especially a large-scale march or expedition moving inland from the coast.”
Then, as frequently happens, my eye drifted in search of other new words, and I came across “apotheosis.” It is “1) the highest point of power or importance; 2) the best or most glorious example of something; 3) the transformation of a human being into a deity.” Well and good, we all like to learn new things.
Shortly thereafter, I received two pieces of remarkable news about the Texas Heart Institute Journal that put my new-found vocabulary to immediate use. First, we were informed that all of our back issues, from 1974 to the present, are now available online in full-text form on PubMed Central (pubmedcentral.gov). Second, all of our articles are now indexed retroactively in PubMed/MEDLINE (pubmed.gov). When the THI Journal was accepted in Index Medicus in July 1992, we were told that only articles from 1993 on were to be indexed. So these huge retroactive steps are in truth huge steps forward.
Putting some of my new vocabulary to work, I might go so far as to call these developments the apotheosis of our laboratory bulletin that got its start 30 years ago in the Cullen Cardiovascular Surgical Research Laboratories. Back then, this journal was called Cardiovascular Diseases: Bulletin of the Texas Heart Institute, and its founding editor was Dr. John C. Norman, who wrote in the foreword of the first issue (Jan. 1974) that its purpose was “to provide an accessible, responsive, and expedient forum for brief and thoughtful topics of current interest in cardiovascular diseases, from within and beyond our institutions.” Some truly groundbreaking work was being done in that laboratory, and much of it appeared in the Bulletin. (See, for example, our reproduction in this issue of Dr. Norman's own article “An Abdominal Left Ventricular Assist Device (ALVAD): Perspectives and Prospects,” first published in 1974.)
Residents, fellows, visiting physicians, and our extended readership from all over the world learned of the Bulletin and contributed their work—hence the distinctive international character that the THI Journal retains to this day. We were never really a “hospital journal.” We were a cardiovascular diseases bulletin that matured, over the years, into an international forum for the discussion of the science and diseases of the cardiovascular system. And that, we think, is something to be proud of. We invite our readers to review the 30-year archives of Cardiovascular Diseases and the Texas Heart Institute Journal at pubmedcentral.gov.
Now if I can just find a use for anabasis …