The year 2023 has been a year of milestones for the journal. We have made a remarkable leap forward by increasing the frequency of the publication of the Indian Journal of Plastic Surgery (IJPS) to six issues per year from this year onward. This is a milestone that signifies the growth of the journal with high-quality articles. Publishing faster with shorter article turnaround times has improved overall efficiency. Our efforts to stay abreast of international challenges and relevant competitive titles have benefited both the authors and the readers.
Impact Factor
The icing on the cake for this year[1] has been the receipt of the journal's first-ever impact factor of 0.8 after 56 years of publication, which is a decent score. The Scopus CiteScore continues to trend upward, and is currently at 1.4.
Increase in Frequency
The journal's growth trajectory has been steady and impressive over the last two decades. Until 2003, the journal was available only offline in print issues. All correspondence was possible only through physical postage mail, and article submissions were made in hard and soft copies to the editor. Print copies were the only source of reading, which were sent individually to members or departmental libraries. In 2004, during the editorship of Dr. Mukund Thatte, IJPS turned digital, publishing online with Medknow Publishers. Since then, we have a record of soft copies of each issue available online in the journal portal. All issue publications from 2004 onward, that is, Vol. 37 onward, are available online in the journal portal.
The journal was indexed in PubMed Central in 2008, and the full text of all subsequent publications can also be found on PubMed Central. The year-wise and issue-wise catalog of the journal is archived and accessible from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/journals/941/. Three regular issues were published annually under Dr. Surajit Bhattacharys's editorship, which continued till 2020. The frequency was increased to four per year during 2021 to 2022. The launch of six issues this year marks the beginning of a new era for IJPS.
Archives of IJPS
The archives of yesteryears are a vast treasure trove, symbolizing decades of quality work, publication, and journey of the Association of Plastic Surgeons of India (APSI). Several defining works published in the contemporary era went unnoticed and never received any credit because they were not available or accessible for reading and citation.
The publication of IJPS' archive has been one of the momentous achievements of this year. The journal began publishing in 1968, and proudly stands as the oldest plastic surgery publication in Asia. However, we do not have any accessible and verifiable records online to substantiate our claims and showcase the archival material. Decades of print issues have been lost in time or are available in a few individual possessions and libraries.
We took on the herculean task of collecting all volumes of IJPS print issues, digitizing them, and publishing them. I specifically thank Dr. Mukund Thatte for digitizing the print copies of the journal from the collections of late Prof. Ramesh Chandra. After an elaborate discussion with our Thieme publisher, we arranged to publish all articles online with a new digital object identifier (DOI) number in a citable format. The DOI is a distinct code that helps readers quickly locate a URL. These articles are now accessible, readable, and can be cited in articles. So far, we have published 11 years of content from 1986 to 1996 and are currently working on the remaining volumes. These articles are published in PDF files, preserving their original format. In due course, we will highlight key articles from the archives to brief and inspire the new generation of plastic surgeons.
Reading articles written by our founding fathers of the association, which reflect their struggles, contributions, and innovations, is always fascinating. Among the publications from the 1980s and 1990s, several articles were written by, to name a few, N.H. Antia, C.P. Sawhney, I.K. Dhawan, Siti Roy Choudhary, J.K. Sinha, A.C. Ganguly, F.M. Tripathi, Mita Prasanna, Prema Dhanraj, and so on.[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7] Our doyens' vast experience and exceptional teachings that were published and possibly forgotten are now accessible to us!
Undoubtedly, Ancient India is well known and credited for reconstructive surgeries; it is now time for us to rediscover the progress of plastic surgery in modern times, which is at par with the rest of the world. Being one of the oldest plastic surgery journals in the world, the IJPS has the authority and advantage that come along with history. The world will take notice once we publish this treasure trove and reclaim our contributions!
