Farewell to editorial deadlines!

Indian pacing and electrophysiology journal (IPEJ), the official journal of the Indian Heart Rhythm Society, is entering its 19th year. It is with great satisfaction, I am writing this editorial - the last of its kind in the capacity of Editor-in-Chief of the Journal.

I haven't written many editorials during my tenure spanning 6 years since 2014, not more than three to be precise, as I felt my role as editor-in-chief is to be as impartial as possible, and the editor's privileges should not be misused. Furthermore, initially, the priority was to give more time to take care of many setbacks the journal had gone through during its transition to a new publishing platform.

Let me bring some statistics on the status of the journal here. In 2014, the journal had attracted around 100 submissions per year with rejection rates around 40%; now we have nearly 200 submissions per year, and the rejection rate had been 72% in 2020 so far (Fig. 1). The journal gets increasingly more manuscripts from countries known for quality research, and the proportion of original articles being submitted has considerably gone up. The average processing time to the first decision has come down from 12 to 4 weeks now, though this duration needs to be brought down further to attract more submissions. Now, we publish the manuscripts online within a week of acceptance, though the scheduling of manuscript to the respective issues takes a couple of months more.

Fig. 1.

The chart shows an overview of all articles received and processed by the editorial team in a calendar year since 2016.

The journal continues to face many challenges too. Despite an increase in numbers, original articles contribute to only 30% of submissions, and 45% of manuscripts published. Case reports, the category that constitutes the majority of submissions, hardly does contribute to citations. Many of them are important clinical observations and often reflect the unique practices of developing countries that are often not highlighted in leading electrophysiology journals. However, due to the concerns on the citation, the acceptance rate of the case reports has traditionally been less than 20%. Many case reports with interesting observations remain unpublished this way. The non-availability of committed reviewers had been another major concern. I should admit that it was disheartening to see even established electrophysiologists turning a cold shoulder to our review requests and repeated reminders. Still, the average number of reviewers for original articles had always been above 2.0, and this has been a standard we always kept to ourselves to follow.

IPEJ, since its inception in 2002, had been an open-access journal without any publication charges on the authors. The editorial work of the team was by the voluntary effort of medical professionals interested in maintaining free access to academic publications. The journal is now included in Index PubMed, The Directory of Open Access Journals, EMBASE, SCOPUS, and Elsevier ClinicalKey. The SJR (SCImago Journal Rank) index and citeScore had remained nearly stable in the last 5–6 years. (Fig. 2). We are yet to apply for impact factor to Thomas Reuters and are building a strong case at the application that won't get easily rejected. That should be one of the priorities for the near future.

Fig. 2.

The progression of SJR index and the number of citations of the manuscripts over years since the inception of the journal.

We begin the twentieth year of IPEJ with the Journal well-positioned for continued growth and success. It remains strong with around 200 annual submissions, an acceptance rate below 30%, and time to electronic publication after acceptance of 5–7 days. The time to first decision remains high at 4 weeks, and this can be improved only by whole-hearted involvement of reviewers. For many years, the issues used to get published with three or four original articles, one or two review articles and a few case reports. Interestingly, COVID 19 pandemic has caused an upsurge in the number of manuscripts being submitted, and this issue has 10 original articles; we hope to include more review articles and reduce the number of case reports in the future as the visibility of the journal gets better. The journal is in good shape, its reach, influence, and endowment bigger than anything imaginable at the time Dr. Francis made his noble gesture to start a subspeciality journal in cardiac electrophysiology in 2002 - a visionary attempt even before an electrophysiological society was formed in this country.

I could never have imagined a journey as an editor so long and so fulfilling. This job has never been easy, but it has brought me just as much joy as it has stress and pressure under deadlines on finalising the table of contents, arranging editorials, or occasional outcry from people in regards to the delay in editorial responses. But I loved to pursue this work, and, overall, I have had a wonderful time with this job. To be honest, the power of an editor has always made me nervous too. It seemed obvious to me that medical journalism, as an imperfect medium, will always include inadvertent mistakes and, along with nurturing the science, it will invariably corrupt it as well. The editorial process of any standards can never be an exception to this as perceptions of truth vary from individual to individual.

As I look back, as one does at such a time, I have many people to thank for supporting me. But most of all, I have to thank my co-editors I travelled with. I was lucky to have a strong editorial team that provided support, guidance, and reassurance during years of this odyssey. I found strength and encouragement from my family that included my twin girls as old as my editors' job, and they created around me a positive environment that was essential to my success. I greatly appreciate the opportunity provided by Dr. Johnson Francis to serve as the Editor-in-Chief of this prestigious scientific journal. During this tenure, I was also impressed by the enthusiasm of the leadership of many in the Indian Heart Rhythm Society for their willingness to offer assistance to me.

My approach to work has been reasonably simple: it was about working with dignity, remaining unbiased about the authors of the manuscripts, and upholding the spirit of the commitment. I hope I have done some of that. I have failed at times, but I have never stopped trying. It is why I leave with pride and a feeling of accomplishment, and with no element of regrets! I wish to welcome the new editorial team to be led by Dr. Raja Selvaraj and wish them all the success in this endeavour. Finally, I would like to thank the readers, reviewers, and researchers for helping IPEJ to go through all these successful years and wish you all a very happy, healthy, and productive 2021.