A Broader View

As we send our August 2022 issue of HSS Journal to press, I believe I speak for the entire editorial staff and board when I express great enthusiasm for recent developments at our journal. Our new publisher, SAGE, continues to provide outstanding support in our efforts to attract new content, build our online reputation, and broaden our readership. The editorial board has engaged in several strategies to improve our social media presence and develop guidelines for authors submitting manuscripts addressing topics involving diversity, equity, and inclusion. We are also exploring recent developments in peer review to consider how to improve that process for authors and reviewers. It is an exciting time to be involved in the production of our publication.

In addition to our usual high-quality original research, in this issue we present 2 interesting pieces I hope you will read. The first is a poem, “Magic Number Four,” by B.S.W. Sparks written in response to HSS Journal’s special issue on the COVID-19 pandemic published in 2020 (https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/hssa/16/1_suppl). I am grateful to guest editor C. Ronald MacKenzie, MD, for bringing this poem to our attention. I am particularly intrigued by Mr. Sparks’s reference to the “Normandy shores” as a metaphor for the stress and hardship so many clinicians endured during the unprecedented early weeks and months of the pandemic. The poet asks, “Will we survive?” and answers himself: “Only time, whatever that may be, will tell” (https://doi.org/10.1177/15563316221098032). Be sure to listen to the audio of the poet reading his work aloud.

A letter to the editor we received illustrates how the multidisciplinary focus of our journal is perhaps its greatest asset. Steven Overman, MD, MPH, a rheumatologist in Seattle, Washington, responded to a study published in the February 2022 issue by Kopechek and colleagues that investigated whether the preoperative measurement of erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) and C-reactive protein (CRP) has predictive value for the risk of periprosthetic joint infection (PJI) following elective total shoulder arthroplasty[1]. The authors found no association between preoperative ESR and CRP values and the development of postoperative PJI; they opined that these tests may have little utility in the preoperative screening process for shoulder arthroplasty patients. Dr. Overman gives a broader view, however, by drawing on his clinical experience in using ESR and CRP values as indicators of underlying rheumatologic conditions, including spondyloarthritis, which can be especially difficult to diagnose; he clearly explains how spondyloarthritis may be missed in patients presenting with what appears to be osteoarthritis (https://doi.org/10.1177/15563316221098668). By providing a rheumatologist’s perspective, Dr. Overman presents a provocative argument: that orthopedic surgeons should consider including ESR and CRP measurements in routine diagnostic and preoperative screening. I am grateful to Dr. Overman for providing this broader view.