JBJS OA Awards: Recognizing Excellence Among Open Access Manuscripts

JBJS Open Access (OA) was launched in October 2016 as an international, peer-reviewed, open-access journal by the publishers of The Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery. The mission of this continuously published, online-only journal is to provide free access to a steady flow of comprehensive, objective, and evidence-based basic science and clinical studies that have the potential to impact orthopaedic care worldwide. JBJS OA was accepted for indexing in PubMed Central in August 2018 and by Scopus in August 2019.

The AOA Critical Issues in Education channel was added to JBJS OA in January 2020. These manuscripts are managed in partnership with the American Orthopaedic Association (AOA). A total of 44 manuscripts were submitted in 2021. The inaugural Deputy Editor for the channel, Dr. Shepard Hurwitz, retired from this post in 2021. For the previous 5 years, Dr. Hurwitz had served as the Deputy Editor for the Topics in Training section in JBJS, the predecessor for the Education channel. His successor as Deputy Editor for AOA Critical Issues in Education is Dr. George Dyer, Director of the Harvard Combined Orthopaedic Residency Program. Dr. Dyer is ably assisted by Dr. Michelle James in her continued role as Associate Deputy Editor. We welcome Dr. Dyer to the team and express our gratitude to Dr. Hurwitz for his years of service.

The number of manuscripts submitted to JBJS OA has increased over the years. From July 2016 to December 2021, JBJS OA published a total of 148 articles, of which 39 were Critical Issues in Education manuscripts. The number of page views has also increased steadily. We thank our readers for their interest and continued support. We appreciate the members of our international editorial board for their assessment of the manuscripts and their management of the editorial process, ensuring the high quality of our journal.

To acknowledge and celebrate the impactful work of our authors, we have created 2 annual awards for JBJS OA, 1 for the best scientific and 1 for the best education manuscript published each year, starting with 2021. The selection of the winning manuscripts is based on the following criteria:

• Broad interest across the spectrum of bone and joint surgery

• Rigorous methodology, a strong message, and useful images or illustrations

• The potential to change practice and/or improve orthopaedic education

• Findings of international relevance

Congratulations to our 2021 winners:

• “Disparities Among Industry’s Highly Compensated Orthopaedic Surgeons” by Joseph X. Robin, MD, Sudarsan Murali, MBA, Kyle D. Paul, BS, Alexander M. Kofskey, BS, Anthony L. Wilson, MS, Adam M. Almaguer, MD, Bradley W. Wills, MD, Gerald McGwin, PhD, Amit M. Momaya, MD, Eugene W. Brabston, MD, and Brent A. Ponce, MD

• “Entrustable Professional Activities in Orthopaedics” by Adam Watson, MBBS, BMedSci, MSurgicalEd, FRACS, Timothy Leroux, MD, MEd, FRCS(C), Darrell Ogilvie-Harris, MD, MSc, FRCS(C), Markku Nousiainen, MD, MSc, FRCS(C), FAOA, Peter C. Ferguson, MD, MSc, FRCS(C), FAOA, Lucas Murnahan, MD, MEd, FRCS(C), and Tim Dwyer, MBBS, FRACS, FRCS(C).

We wish everyone a productive and fulfilling 2022.