EJA 2011: Finding the balance between science and politics

One year has passed since the advent of the new European Journal of Anaesthesiology (EJA). Have we achieved our plans? Does the EJA satisfy all expectations? This is wishful thinking as there are too many ideas and opinions on what our speciality journal should be, and what priorities should be set. Some would like a journal devoted to continuous medical education, publishing primarily narrative review articles, with related multiple-choice questions to assess readers’ acquisition of the new knowledge. Others would like us to concentrate on primary research papers, reporting original data from both animal and human studies. Also, there is significant disagreement, even among the editors, on whether we should continue to publish reports dealing with basic science or chronic pain, because papers in these categories only arrive in the editorial office following rejection by several other specialty journals. What we have realised these last 12 months, however, is that the EJA, in contrast to similar specialty journals, is expected to play a role in both the science and politics of anaesthesia in Europe, and we cannot overlook that.