Members Speak Up About the Possibility of Affiliating with a
Surgical Journal
Below are email comments which were sent to the SCA headquarters office and/or SCA’s President, Christina Mora Mangano in late 2007.
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As a longtime CV and generalist anesthesiologist, I would strongly prefer sticking with A&A. Thanks for your consideration, and thanks also for your hard work on behalf of the SCA.
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We are in fervent support of the SCA working with the STS. By publishing SCA research in the Annals of Thoracic Surgery, as has been proposed, communication across the ether screen only stands to improve. This cooperative approach to the ever-increasing complexity of patient care is long overdue. It is, in fact, the "esprit-de-corps" we wish to foster in our own cardiac surgery program. While some may criticize the boldness of this move, we recognize it for its vision. Whatever the differences between surgeon and anesthesiologist, putting them aside to focus on our common patient is the right thing to do. Thank you for your leadership in our always brave new world.
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Thank you for helping to promote the possible affiliation between the SCA and the STS/Annals of Thoracic Surgery. I would strongly support the change in journals as you discussed in the December SCA newsletter. I find that the bulk of the non-cardiovascular articles in A&A aren't pertinent to my practice since I focus mainly on CT and vascular anesthesia. I believe that our membership would be best served by the combining of the common issues that CVT anesthesia and CT surgery share, in particular the subjects of neuroprotection, coagulation medicine, transfusion medicine, imaging, and cardiac protection (definitely not fully inclusive!). Our regular exposure to their studies and their exposure to our studies will improve our understanding of each other's field and will help generate a common language that will improve communication.
Thanks for considering my opinion!
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In response to the December 2007 letter regarding journal selection, I personally believe that a closer collaboration and 'understanding' of anesthesia by our surgical partners will only strengthen patient care in the CVOR.
This is not to say that we as anesthesiologists might not also benefit from exposure to the current concerns and advances that our surgical partners are exploring. I believe it will benefit both sides to have a 'combined journal.'
It will be critical to maintain a separate editorial board and an agreement to a certain guaranteed amount of printable space each issue. We don't want to get pushed out to just a few back pages because they want to run more space on the glories of off pump robotic assisted mitral valve repositioning via the coronary sinus approach.
The time has come and I for one would vote for a collaboration with STS in a journal project. Thank you for your work on this matter.
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I have been involved in cardiac anesthesia for well over 30 yrs. Over this time I have learnt a lot not only from journals dedicated to cardiac anesthesia -but also from cardio- thoracic surgical journals. However I have, so far, not seen or met a surgeon who has made an effort to read a journal devoted to cardiac anesthesia! I would therefore support this union with the Journal of Thoracic Surgery with the hope that the surgeons may get some insight about the problems and solutions from the cardiac anesthesiologist's perspective. This could then lead to a true collegial partnership! Good luck on this endeavor.
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It is very easy to see where your bias lies, as you mentioned in the second editorial. The first editorial was somewhat biased, the second more so. I am somewhat torn. I do not do cardiovascular full time, but I am interested in getting the surgeon point of view. It would be nice to get the other journal. However, personally I feel closer to the anesthesia side of things than the CV side. You seem to be pushing to separate the CV anesthesia from all others. Maybe this is the future; you seem to think so. I don't work at an academic institution, and we aren't so separated. Most of us here do all types of anesthesia. I would personally vote not the change. Thank you.
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I am in agreement that we need to "affiliate" with the STS and have our works published there. This would be a great joint venture and I agree that the times have changed. Communications between the OR teams is now the highlight of working in the CVOR. It is a high priority where I work as well as being championed by many national societies. I just wish the other surgical specialties would also embrace this view of open communication and teamwork. I enthusiastically support the position to move towards partnership with STS regarding the publication of scientific work in anesthesia. Thanks.
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I appreciate the opportunity to respond to the proposed use of the Annals of Thoracic Surgery as the official journal for the SCA. I would be in agreement with this only if and when the journal is renamed the Annals of Thoracic Surgery and Anesthesia. I think that would be a good way to "mend bridges".
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I think you should do a real survey of SCA members to get opinions about the switch away from A+A, not just from those you happen to get e-mail from. I think it would be a problem for A+A to not have a cardiac anesthesia section, I would certainly still feel the need to continue getting both A+A and Anesthesiology. Would the surgical journal be included in our SCA dues? I stopped getting the red cardiac anesthesiology journal a year or two ago because it was so ridiculously expensive for just 6 issues a year but why is it not more closely associated with SCA?
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This is from a New Zealand member of the SCA. I used to work with Bruce Spiess and others in Seattle. I have a solution which you may wish to consider for your tricky choice. Use both journals. The reason is clear …CV anesthesia is in a crossover area. Things which we cardiac anesthesia specialists do are of interest to non cardiac anesthesia specialists (e.g. echo) and there are things which happen in the regular anesthesia world of interest to the cardiac anesthesia world.
My practical suggestion is for cardiac anesthesia articles to be submitted to an editorial group. This group then selects which publications are most suitable to go into each journal, based on some easy to agree criteria. Then the summary of what is in each article in the OTHER journal is in each journal with an electronic link…i.e. abstracts….so we can see if we need to look up the other journal. Abstracts with good concise summaries and editorial opinions are the way to go anyway.
This solution is not only politically savvy but it truly acknowledges the crossover area we inhabit…..we have to bind more with the surgeons and we must not lose our colleagues in anesthesia.
e.g. Down here I am about to go on an echo conference with non-cardiac anesthesiologists leading and teaching…..the non-cardiac guys must be kept in the loop and stay connected to cardiac…my solution above maintains the correct linkages. Cheers
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Thank you for your discussion of switching to the Annals of Thoracic Surgery as the official SCA journal. It is interesting to me that I am a reviewer for both Annals of Thoracic Surgery and A&A. I have met Hank Edmunds a number of times and collaborate extensively with CT surgeons. I spend more time on ATS journal reviews than A&A reviews and they value my input more highly. If you switch journals, the most likely outcome is that I will continue to read multiple journals but I will spend more time on ATS than I do at present.
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My vote is for the Annals of Thoracic Surgery. I am an anesthesiologist in a large private practice (80+ MDs, 80+ CRNAs), who does cardiac 1-2 days/week, in addition to a diverse general practice. I have become increasingly disillusioned with both Anesthesia and Analgesia AND Anesthesiology, due to the content. In any given month, neither journal provides any more than 1-2 items of interest, mixed in with a lot of esoteric basic science and clinical studies that are not useful/enlightening. I can't imagine that the surgical journal would be any worse, and even if it is, it would at least be a change! That's my condensed two cents. Hope it is helpful.
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For what it is worth, I am quite strongly of the opinion that we should align ourselves with a cardiac surgical journal, probably Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery. However, for this to work to our benefit, we need to be very clear and very strong in negotiations with the surgical body in that this needs to be an academic partnership, not a takeover. Please let me know if I am able to contribute anything further.
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I want to offer my thought about the Journal Affiliation. I believe that we should stay with A&A. The circulation of A&A worldwide affords the SCA the largest number of readers available for us, a benefit that a surgical journal would not. I believe that the affiliation with A&A is not broken and therefore doesn't need to be fixed.
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I think it helpful to have CV arts put before the general population of NON-SCA anesthesiologists. Circulating the papers before the specialty group limits their distribution and extension of key information to general anesthesiologists.
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I am willing to discuss this issue. It is an important issue supporting the idea that anesthesiologists should claim their own Journal.
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Please do not change the society journal from A & A. Many of the members of SCA do more than just cardiac cases. Don't fix what is not broken. The journal, Anesthesiology, you get from being an ASA member is less clinically oriented than A & A. SCA needs to continue to woo membership that is inclusive of the specialty at large, and not narrow its focus by affiliating with a surgical journal. You need to have an electronic or snail mail ballot of the entire membership to decide this, not a web conference with limited participation. For people with families, busy lives, or work obligations it's too onerous to have a web conference, especially around the holidays. Thanks in advance for your attention to this. Say hi to Dennis who was my mentor at UCSF many years ago.
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I'd be happy to participate. Was chair of the Publications Committee that arranged the affiliation. At that time our first choice was JTCVS, but couldn't get it done. It is an interesting concept to try again. Have there been problems with A&A?
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How do we register? And for the record, I am TOTALLY opposed to changing affiliation to a surgical journal.
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I would like to participate in the web conference to determine the SCA's journal affiliation. At present I am very pleased with Anesthesia & Analgesia.
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I am against joining a surgical journal, and in favor or staying with A&A.
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I agree that we should affiliate with the CVT surgeons. I understand the dynamics well, have been in private practice for some time, and think that the generalist journal misses our mark. It is difficult to obtain the surgical journal without this collaboration and I think we need the collaboration. I am a full time cardiovascular anesthesiologist and would like to see this happen.
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As a private practice cardiac anesthesiologist whose practice is exclusively CV and thoracic I agree with your statement that the surgical literature often is of more interest to me than the bulk of the articles in A&A. I also think it would be great if we could get our colleagues to focus more on issues relating to patient management rather than just techniques. Let’s face it, it’s much more frequent that something unusual happens during a bread and butter operation than it is that we perform some new groundbreaking one.
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NB: Reference is made to participation in a “web conference”. These conferences took place in early December and will not be repeated. Please do not contact the SCA office to inquire as to how you may participate in such a conference.
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