As we start 2021 and hope that the problems that afflicted all of us in 2020 are now behind us, we welcome you to a new year and a new edition of Bone & Joint Open.
Bone & Joint Open is now well established as a PubMed-indexed gold open access journal within the Bone & Joint publishing family. With the support of our executive and publishing team, we have carefully kept the article processing charge (APC) as low as possible in order to allow access to open publication to as many people as possible. We therefore encourage the direct submission of your work to Bone & Joint Open; we will also direct you and your work to the journal if it is considered methodologically sound and relevant but not suitable for inclusion in The Bone & Joint Journal, which has been overwhelmed with submissions.
We hope that Bone & Joint Open will soon be recognized for the high methodological quality and rigour of the published work, and that the protocols, pilot studies, reviews, and preliminary articles will be seen as the stepping stone to the larger studies that will change trauma and orthopaedic practice worldwide.
In this issue of Bone & Joint Open, we highlight a remarkable set of complications seen in Argentina after anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction.1 This series of 21 cases demonstrates a devastating outcome for a set of patients undergoing what we would normally regard as routine outpatient surgery.
2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic have reminded us not to take anything for granted.2-9 The pathway that our patients go through demands that technology work at every level, that facilities are clean and infection-free, and that we have the resources and capabilities to deliver high-quality outcomes to them. During COVID-19, some unidentified failures in the system, particularly in relation to infection control and prevention, clearly led to awful outcomes for patients, and to a very necessary review of the equipment and procedures undertaken.
We also have a qualitative study of satisfaction after adult brachial plexus surgery.10 The lives of these patients are truly devastated, and understanding that impact and generating relevant research in this group demands a qualitative review of how these patients function.11,12 Likewise, tibial fractures and other major trauma leads to a significant impact on patients’ quality of life and function, and detailing that will generate important inputs for future relevant studies.13-21
We will, of course, also continue to highlight COVID-19-related work as we learn more about the impact of the pandemic, and how we can come out of it with better processes and better function.22-26
We thank you all for your support and your commitment to our journals, and wish you a safe, happy and healthy 2021.
Footnotes
Funding statement: No benefits in any form have been received or will be received from a commercial party related directly or indirectly to the subject of this article.
ICMJE COI statement: F. S. Haddad reports editorial board membership by The Bone & Joint Journal and the Annals of the Royal College Of Surgeons, consultancy and royalties from Smith & Nephew, Corin, MatOrtho, and Stryker, and payment for lectures (including service on speakers’ bureaus) from Smith & Nephew and Stryker, all of which are unrelated to this article.
References
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