Taking stock and looking ahead.

It has been over eighteen months since this team took over the editorial functions of the Journal of Postgraduate Medicine. It is time we took stock of the situation and assessed where we stand! The journal has been receiving contributions from scientists all over the world. During the calendar year 2003 the editors received 438 manuscripts from authors drawn from over 30 countries, 134 (32%) were accepted, 284 were rejected and 20 continue to be in the review process. On an average, the first response was conveyed to the author in 24 days. The mean turn around time (time from first submission to acceptance) was 62 days and the average time between acceptance and publication of a manuscript was 71 days. These parameters mirror the journal's policy and commitment not only to choose articles for publication only after a thorough and careful peer review, but also to do so with minimal time lag so that the ideas and results are widely disseminated to the scientific community at the earliest. It has been possible to achieve this scale of efficiency largely due to the commitment and sagacity of our reviewers. On behalf of the editorial team, I wish to express my gratitude to each one of the 1432 referees drawn from various countries spread across the globe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]