Issn Print: 0277-1691

Publication Date: 2000/01/01


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The Journal Marks the Millennium

Philip B Clement

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Excerpt

Inasmuch as the rest of the world is currently celebrating the new millennium (even though it does not begin until January 1, 2001!), it is appropriate that this occasion be noted by the Journal. Accordingly, this issue has a number of special features, as detailed below. I shall begin, however, by recounting the events that led to the birth of the Journal and summarize its subsequent development. Our Society can look back at the Journal's first 18 years with considerable pride with regard to its content over the years and its attainment of a respectable circulation for a quarterly subspecialty journal. That the Journal has flourished to the extent that it has is due to the efforts of many people, including my three illustrious predecessors as Editor-in-Chief (Ancel Blaustein, Steven G. Silverberg, Henry J. Norris), a distinguished Editorial Board, and most importantly, those authors, both members and nonmembers of the International Society of Gynecological Pathologists, who have contributed manuscripts to the Journal over the years.
The history of the founding of the Journal will not be familiar to many of its readers. In 1977, Springer Verlag expressed to Dr. Ancel Blaustein an interest in starting an international journal of gynecological pathology with him as Editor-in-Chief. He approached the Executive Committee of the International Society of Gynecological Pathologists to seek the Society's sponsorship of the proposed journal, but the Committee decided that the time was not propitious in view of the recent founding of two other pathology journals (American Journal of Surgical Pathology and Histopathology) and the obvious competition for contributions that would exist. In 1980, however, the Committee recommended to the Society that it should sponsor a quarterly journal devoted to gynecological pathology, prompted in part by the perceived likelihood that a gynecological pathology journal was going to emerge in the near future with or without the blessing of the Society. The following arguments were put forth by the Committee in favor of this proposal, as recorded by Dr. Robert E. Scully, President of the Society: a journal would enable the Society to fulfill its mission of international education and more effectively facilitate communication among the members, including Associate Members, who do not ordinarily attend pathology meetings, and foster a closer relationship between the Society and other societies; a journal would facilitate the exchange of information among scientists in various parts of the world; and a journal guided by the Society would be preferable to one controlled by a publisher and an unknown editorial board. At the business meeting of the Society in New Orleans in March 1980, a motion, introduced by Dr. William Christopherson, was passed to establish a Publications Committee to investigate further the question of founding a journal by the Society. Dr. Blaustein was appointed Chairman of the Committee; the other members were Dr. Frank Vellios (who was then Emeritus Editor of the American Journal of Clinical Pathology) and members of the Executive Committee. The Publications Committee enthusiastically endorsed the founding of the journal and presented its report at the meeting of the Society held in conjunction with the World Congress of the International Academy of Pathology in Paris, September 1980, and later at the meeting of the Society in Chicago in March 1981. The proposal was approved by the membership, and subsequently, Dr. Blaustein, on behalf of the Society, negotiated a contract with Raven Press, Springer Verlag having lost interest in such an endeavor. The first issue of the Journal appeared in early 1982, with Dr. Blaustein as Editor-in-Chief, Drs.
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