Commentary

The End of a Season

Author and Disclosure Information

 

Spring, it symbolizes a new beginning. The smell of fresh cut grass hangs in the air, and it’s my favorite time of the sports year. A new season has begun in baseball, and the NHL and NBA playoffs are underway. As a new season begins, two more draw to a close. In this fan’s opinion, there is nothing quite as exciting as playoff hockey, and this month AJO hopes to “Capital-ize” on that excitement by presenting the hockey issue.

In “The Ice Hockey Issue”, Popkin and colleagues present a review of upper extremity injuries in hockey, which will serve as a guide for sports medicine physicians covering hockey games. There’s even a segment covering dental and ocular injuries, in case you don’t have a dentist or ophthalmologist handy. While we typically no longer publish case reports, Degen and colleagues present a unique report detailing an unusual injury to a prominent NHL goaltender. AJO presents it to expand your diagnostic differential for neck injuries.

I had another reason in mind when I mentioned the end of a season in this month’s editorial. The new AJO has seen a lot of changes, and it is our Editorial Team’s goal to continuously improve the journal and to provide timely features that are directly relevant to your practice. We’ve updated our website, and we’ve added some features, such as QR codes and take-home points, to improve your reading experience. But our ability to further enhance the journal is limited in print, and our web statistics show that a large percentage of our readers view the articles on their smartphones.

As I’ve written before, these are challenging times for printed media. The digital age has arrived and technology has made traditional publications less appealing. Our younger readers now demand a portable, electronic, media-rich publication that provides information that directly benefits their practices. To provide this, we envision a digital journal that is immersed in a learning environment, with videos, technique guides, and supplementary materials just a click away.

A few months back, AJO tested the digital waters. Our trial met with a positive response, and so, it is with great excitement that we announce that beginning in 2018, AJO will be the first orthopedic journal to go “All Digital.”

To further our goal of creating material that directly impacts your practice, we will present each feature review article as a learning module. The articles will feature extensive photos and videos, PowerPoint presentations for download, test questions, and patient information sheets. We will publish authors’ preference cards and postoperative protocols.

We’re currently developing applications and tools to improve your interactive experience. In the coming months, look for announcements regarding new strategic partnerships and features that will become mainstays of our electronic environment.

I hope you share the excitement of a new beginning in the digital era. I know the transition will provide a greatly enhanced, valuable resource that will change the way we utilize journals in our practice.

Am J Orthop. 2017;46(3):122. Copyright Frontline Medical Communications Inc. 2017. All rights reserved.

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