A New Year
Article Outline
With the coming of the Winter Solstice and a turn of the calendar page, we welcome the New Year – a time for reflection, transition, and looking ahead. This marking of time is especially felt here at the Journal of Pediatric Health Care (JPHC), as with this issue, Sarah Martin and I officially move into our new roles as Associate Editor and Editor-in-Chief. Each of us moves into these positions with a keen sense of history and tradition, an open mind to changes that may lie ahead, and a deep appreciation for this opportunity to give something back.
A transition can be thought of as a turning point or a passage from one contextual pattern to another. In nursing, Meleis and colleagues (2000) offered a middle range theory of transitions to help nurses facilitate the process that families undergo as part of the health-illness trajectory. In the pediatric literature, transition as a concept has been analyzed in the context of caring for siblings of children with cancer (Wilkins & Woodgate, 2006). The study of transitions has also been applied in the development of nursing curricula (Young & Wilkerson, 2000). What has emerged is that transition is a dynamic process that may be characterized by instability but which also offers opportunities. The positive outcomes of transition may be linked to the antecedent events of the passage, as well as to the attributes which surround this change process.
For us as a community of clinical scholars, a positive transition in the life of this Journal can easily be traced to early events in our history as well as to the current circumstances in which change is now being carried out. Since the Journal was founded in 1986, it has developed—thanks to the excellent leadership of two visionary editors and numerous departmental editors and advisors—into a first rate professional journal for pediatric nurse practitioners and providers. The JPHC disseminates current research findings, clinical guidelines, and updates on professional issues. It has also raised the level of inquiry and the quality of scholarship in our field while giving each of us a voice.
Over the years, the Journal has evolved and has made advantageous use of technology through which we have been able to refine the publication process and broaden our mission. In January 2006, the Journal was launched on the Elsevier Editorial System (EES) which has not only made the review process smoother, but also enables us to generate reports that are of key interest to others in the publishing world. The Journal’s Web site, http://journals.elsevierhealth.com/periodicals/ymph (which is also linked to the NAPNAP Web site, www.napnap.org) now contains content dating back to 1995, with full text being available to NAPNAP members and individual journal subscribers. In print form, the Journal reaches close to 7,500 nursing professionals and medical libraries and is also available on Science Direct and Mosby’s Nursing Consult—a tremendous reach in the health care community. Moreover, we are going “green” as we move away from mailing the Journal in the polyethylene plastic bag.
In the past few months as I have become oriented to the editorial role, I have learned a great deal about the many effective team members (the attributes, if you will) who make the Journal work: the dedicated Departmental Editors and members of the Editorial Advisory Board, the creative publishing staff at Elsevier, the supportive executive staff at the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners (NAPNAP), and particularly the manuscript reviewers and authors who submit manuscripts for possible publication as original articles or departmental pieces. The many written contributions and the level of oversight that this dynamic team provides help to ensure that the Journal provides scholarly, clinical writing that is reflective of current practice and informative to our readers.
So, with this strong antecedent history and the many positive attributes which currently surround the transition dynamic at JPHC, we look forward to our own future growth and development on behalf of the profession and particularly for the children and families in our care. We invite you to join our team. We welcome your manuscript submissions for consideration as original clinical or research articles or for potential publication in one of our departments. If you would be interested in serving as a manuscript reviewer, please let me know. And if there is something you would like to write and share with your colleagues but are not sure if what you have would ‘fit’ into any particular format, please let me know that as well. In coming issues, we hope to extend the invitation to our readers to write a guest editorial or a column that reflects your own philosophy or experiences as a pediatric health care provider.
For many, the first few weeks of the New Year are also a time to write some thank-you notes, and I am no exception. I wish to extend my deep appreciation to the NAPNAP Executive Board and staff for this giving me this opportunity and for the support that you have provided to the new kid on the block. I also wish to thank my colleagues at the Yale School of Nursing for their continued encouragement and support. Most of all, on behalf of NAPNAP and the entire readership, we again thank Barbara Crew Nelms and Ruth Mullins Berg for the hard work and professional dedication that has characterized their work as Editor and Assistant Editor for the JPHC since its inception. The positive changes that they have made in pediatric nursing and health care, and ultimately, in the quality of lives for children and families, are incalculable. Bobbie and Ruth, this Journal is a testimony to your legacy, and we will do our best to carry onward!
References
- . Experiencing transitions: An emerging middle range theory. Advances in Nursing Science. 2000;23:12–28
- . Transition: A conceptual analysis in the context of siblings of children with cancer. Journal of Pediatric Nursing. 2006;21:256–265
- . Transitions: A new model for nursing curricula. Nurse Educator. 2000;25:237–240
PII: S0891-5245(07)00441-5
doi:10.1016/j.pedhc.2007.11.001
© 2008 National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
