Happy birthday AME Medical Journal: we are one year old

One year ago, on this very same day, Stephen Wang, the founder and CEO of our publisher—AME Publishing Company—penned the first Editorial for AME Medical Journal (AMJ), and announced the official launch of our new journal. In the editorial, he shared the stories that inspired the founding of AME, and how he came to hatch his dream to “make AME bigger, and to launch over hundreds of journals”. We believe AMJ will contribute in furthering efforts to make our dream a reality.

Today, AMJ is one year old (Figure 1). Looking back at the past year, we are proud to say that we are getting closer to our dream. AME has entered the international market with a bang, and has set up 10 branches all over mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Sydney. Combining high editorial standards with cutting-edge publishing technology, AME has published 49 international peer-review medical journals, of which 3 are currently indexed in SCI, and 18 indexed in PubMed. AMJ, on the other hand, has managed to develop alongside rapidly advancing medical fields, and has made great progress since its launch.

Figure 1 AMJ is one year old.

On this special occasion, we would like to present AMJ’s annual report. The editorial office would like to extend their greatest appreciation to all editors, and reviewers who have been supportive, and devoted much of their time and effort in nurturing AMJ. The journal, in particular, would like to thank the authors for placing their faith in this new, bold journal when it was still in its beginning stages. This continuous support has been pivotal to the development of the journal.

In the times to come, AMJ will remain committed to publishing novel, high-quality, and valuable content. AMJ endeavors to bring readers the most up-to-date information in a wide variety of fields in the hopes of ultimately benefiting patients, all while ensuring the largest possible readership for all articles published in the journal.

Below is the annual report of AMJ. The data is updated till 10 Oct 2017.

Articles published and international authors

In less than 1 year, we have published a total of 155 articles, including 11 original articles, 14 review articles, 22 case reports, 94 editorials focused on recent topics in various fields (Figure 2).

Figure 2 Article types of published articles.

All articles are available online (http://amj.amegroups.com/issue/all).

The authors come from a large variety of countries, demonstrating international diversity in the published works. Of the 155 corresponding authors who have contributed to AMJ, 26 countries from 5 continents (North America, Europe, Asia, Oceania, and South America) are represented (Figure 3).

Figure 3 Geographical distribution of corresponding authors.

Table 1 shows the citation history of several AMJ authors. AMJ strives to maintain a steady yet rapid development pace with the help of the involvement and contribution of prominent authors.

In our modern globalized academic community, AMJ recognizes the importance of international collaborations, and seeks to promote itself as an international journal. We have organized a series of articles focusing on important topics in various fields, and invited international prominent experts to co-author. Figure 4 is an example of the international collaborative project we have organized that was recently published in AMJ.

Figure 4 An international collaborative project we organized that was published in AMJ recently.

Based on data from Google Analytics, AMJ is gaining momentum and attracting interest from readers. When we launched the journal, we had about 1,000 visits per month, which has now grown to over 2,500 visits per month. (Figure 5).

Figure 5 Page views of AMJ website in recent months.

Widespread locale of editorial team

Figure 6A,B demonstrates AMJ’s internationally diverse editorial board: 26% of the editorial board members come from the USA, 16% from Italy, 13% from Mainland China, 9% from Germany, 9% from UK, and 27% from other countries including Taiwan, Canada, Japan, Belgium. The widespread locale allows closer international collaboration between AMJ and its authors.

Figure 6 AMJ editorial board. (A) Meet the editorial board of AMJ; (B) geographic distribution of AMJ editorial board.

AMJ’s steady yet expeditious growth is largely owing to the editorial board members’ active involvement and contribution. The highly enthusiastic and cohesive editorial board puts together a team of distinguished specialists, encouraging a continuous flow of high-quality content in AMJ (Table 2).

AMJ has 16 Section Editors, who are experts from various research areas, including cardiovascular diseases, thoracic disease, hepatology, oncology, Neurology (Figure 7).

Figure 7 Section editors from board fields and amount of articles they’ve solicited.

As Section Editors, they keep track of the latest and significant research in their areas and recommend international key opinion leaders to review and write editorial comments on those important topics. AMJ has been carrying out this project since 2017, and has published a grand total of 99 editorials by international prominent experts (Figure 8).

Figure 8 Some of the editorial comments published in AMJ.

This project has allowed AMJ to keep tabs of developments in various fast-moving medical fields.

Focused issues planned

Table 3 introduces focused issues that AMJ is currently organizing with international Guest Editors in various fields. Each focused issue targets a specific significant topic, gathering remarkable experts of the topical field in one place, so as to contribute insightful ideas on the area of interest.

International conferences

International meetings are always brilliant opportunities for the editorial office to showcase and promote the journal, and to keep up-to-date with the most recent advancements and research of various fields. The editorial staff has participated in various international medical conferences (Figures 9).

Figure 9 International conferences we attended in 2017. (A) The 8th International Thymic Malignancy Interest Group Annual Meeting; (B) European Society of Thoracic Surgeons 2017; (C) American Association for Thoracic Surgery 97th Annual Meeting; (D) Digestive Disease Institute Week 2017.

Here is an outline of some academic meetings we have participated in 2017:

• The 8th International Thymic Malignancy Interest Group Annual Meeting—Sept 2017 (Figure 9A);
• European Society of Thoracic Surgeons 2017—June 2017 (Figure 9B);
• American Association for Thoracic Surgery 97th Annual Meeting—April 2017 (Figure 9C);
• Digestive Disease Institute Week 2017—Feb 2017 (Figure 9D).

Acknowledgements

Funding: None.

Footnote

Provenance and peer review: This article was commissioned by the editorial office, AME Medical Journal. The article did not undergo external peer review.

Ethical Statement: The authors are accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Open Access Statement: This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which permits the non-commercial replication and distribution of the article with the strict proviso that no changes or edits are made and the original work is properly cited (including links to both the formal publication through the relevant DOI and the license). See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.