Skip to main content

Main menu

  • Home
  • Current issue
  • Past issues
  • Authors/reviewers
    • Instructions for authors
    • Submit a manuscript
    • Peer reviewer login
  • Journal club
  • Alerts
  • Subscriptions
  • ERS Publications
    • European Respiratory Journal
    • ERJ Open Research
    • European Respiratory Review
    • Breathe
    • ERS Books
    • ERS publications home

User menu

  • Log in
  • Subscribe
  • Contact Us
  • My Cart

Search

  • Advanced search
  • ERS Publications
    • European Respiratory Journal
    • ERJ Open Research
    • European Respiratory Review
    • Breathe
    • ERS Books
    • ERS publications home

Login

European Respiratory Society

Advanced Search

  • Home
  • Current issue
  • Past issues
  • Authors/reviewers
    • Instructions for authors
    • Submit a manuscript
    • Peer reviewer login
  • Journal club
  • Alerts
  • Subscriptions

An Editor’s farewell

James Y. Paton
Breathe 2015 11: 177-178; DOI: 10.1183/20734735.113215
James Y. Paton
School of Medicine, College of Medical, Veterinary, and Life Sciences, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • For correspondence: james.paton@glasgow.ac.uk
  • Article
  • Info & Metrics
  • PDF
Loading

Abstract

At the end of his mandate as Breathe Chief Editor, James Paton reflects on the previous 3 years http://ow.ly/RctU8

Unlike Scottish judges, editors are not appointed ad vitam aut culpam (“for life or until fault”) but usually come with more limited mandates. After 3 years as Chief Editor of Breathe, my time is up and this is my last issue. Dr Renata Riha from the University of Edinburgh takes over as Chief Editor, with the first issue under her mandate to be ­published in December.

Breathe is the clinical educational publication of the European Respiratory Society (ERS). During the last 3 years, my vision has been to make Breathe like a respiratory version of Scientific American; an easy-to-read publication with high production standards and well-written educational content of interest and relevance to readers in all areas of respiratory medicine.

Some of the developments that have occurred are particularly worth highlighting. One of the most important has been the increasing engagement between Breathe and the junior members of ERS. When I started, a readership survey showed that about three-quarters of our readers were between 25 and 35 years of age with positions across the respiratory spectrum but with particular concentration in physicians in clinical practice, allied health professionals and trainees. We were keen to foster a greater involvement with these junior members. We wanted to ensure that Breathe addressed their interests as well as provided opportunities for them to write and get published.

We have met with ERS’s Junior Member ­Committee (JMC) at every Congress and this has led to a number of regular contributions. Firstly, there has been a junior newsletter that was initially entitled “News from the Underground.” At the request of the authors themselves, it has now been renamed from this issue onwards to “Juniors’ Voice”. They argued for the change because as they themselves said:

“The ERS structure is developing and so is the JMC. We are no longer considered the underground of the ERS. As such, the previous title for this series, “News from the Underground” is not representative anymore. The team’s work has been accepted and appreciated by ERS and the Breathe leadership and, therefore the series has been renamed “Juniors’ Voice” representing the activities we perform and the goals we strive for.

Junior members have also contributed an excellent series of articles called “Doing Science” with titles chosen by and written by the members of the JMC. These have been educational articles specifically targeted at some of the skills and tasks that are important for juniors, such as preparing a poster presentation or dealing with difficult colleagues. While particularly relevant to junior members, I am sure many members across the society will have been interested to read and learn from them.

Junior members from each assembly, under the excellent co-ordination of James Chalmers and later Neil Saad, have also been responsible during my time as Editor for the “Hot Topics from the Assemblies”. These are short summaries of important articles in respiratory medicine written by Junior ERS members. In all these endevours, junior members have contributed enthusiastically. As Editor, I have valued not only their enthusiastic engagement but their consistent, reliable and timely contributions.

Another highlight has been a series of short articles contributed by patients and their physicians facilitated by the European Lung Foundation. There is increasing recognition of the importance of patient voices and patient engagement and it has pleasing to be able to support this in Breathe.

Our last readers’ survey highlighted Breathe had a global audience with two-thirds of our readership in Europe and one-third from the rest of the world prominently including. Our previous website had attracted visits from 167 countries. Since then, Breathe has now moved to the HighWire platform alongside the rest of the ERS journals. The new site makes Breathe more accessible, available on mobile devices. The content is free to access for all and brings high-quality educational material to a wide audience. All the material is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial License, which permits redistribution for non-commercial reasons provided the source is cited.

Editors are unusual because they rely on a whole host of other people to do the work. At the end of my mandate, it is a pleasure to acknowledge and thank all people who have been key to Breathe’s continuing success: all the authors who have contributed interesting educational material to demanding timelines and most especially, David Sadler, managing editor of Breathe, and Eddy Baker, editorial assistant for all ERS publications, and the rest of the staff of the ERS publications department. It is their wise advice, patient reminding and careful technical editing that is really responsible for Breathe’s success.

I never planned, or even dreamed, that I would be Editor of a medical journal even for a short time so it has been a special and unexpected privilege to edit Breathe. I wish my successor, Renata Riha the best of luck and wish Breathe continuing good fortune in its mission as the clinical educational journal of ERS.

  • ©ERS 2015

Breathe articles are open access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Licence 4.0.

PreviousNext
Back to top
Vol 11 Issue 3 Table of Contents
Breathe: 11 (3)
  • Table of Contents
  • Index by author
Email

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word on European Respiratory Society .

NOTE: We only request your email address so that the person you are recommending the page to knows that you wanted them to see it, and that it is not junk mail. We do not capture any email address.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
An Editor’s farewell
(Your Name) has sent you a message from European Respiratory Society
(Your Name) thought you would like to see the European Respiratory Society web site.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Print
Citation Tools
An Editor’s farewell
James Y. Paton
Breathe Sep 2015, 11 (3) 177-178; DOI: 10.1183/20734735.113215

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero

Share
An Editor’s farewell
James Y. Paton
Breathe Sep 2015, 11 (3) 177-178; DOI: 10.1183/20734735.113215
Reddit logo Technorati logo Twitter logo Connotea logo Facebook logo Mendeley logo
Full Text (PDF)

Jump To

  • Article
    • Abstract
  • Info & Metrics
  • PDF
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

More in this TOC Section

  • News
  • Breathe: respiration at the extremes of age
  • Thoracic imaging: course report
Show more Editorial

Related Articles

Navigate

  • Home
  • Current issue
  • Archive

About Breathe

  • Journal information
  • Editorial board
  • Press
  • Permissions and reprints
  • Advertising

The European Respiratory Society

  • Society home
  • myERS
  • Privacy policy
  • Accessibility

ERS publications

  • European Respiratory Journal
  • ERJ Open Research
  • European Respiratory Review
  • Breathe
  • ERS books online
  • ERS Bookshop

Help

  • Feedback

For authors

  • Intructions for authors
  • Publication ethics and malpractice
  • Submit a manuscript

For readers

  • Alerts
  • Subjects
  • RSS

Subscriptions

  • Accessing the ERS publications

Contact us

European Respiratory Society
442 Glossop Road
Sheffield S10 2PX
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 114 2672860
Email: journals@ersnet.org

ISSN

Print ISSN: 1810-6838
Online ISSN: 2073-4735

Copyright © 2023 by the European Respiratory Society