First CytoJournal Peer-Reviewer's Retreat in 2006 - open access, peer-review, and impact factor.

CytoJournal organized its first Peer-Reviewer's Retreat of 2006 during the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology Annual Meeting at Atlanta on Feb 12, 2006. The major topics discussed were open access, peer review, and impact factors. Representative participants volunteered to join the task force to prepare an instructional guide for peer-reviewing cytopathology manuscripts. Concern about the impact factor for CytoJournal was discussed. A feedback to its readers and authors was recommended. Impact factor calculation needs at least three years of journal statistics. It is only possible after two years from the time a journal is first accepted by Thomson-ISI for citation tracking. CytoJournal is still too new for an impact factor to be calculated. However, general progress of CytoJournal suggests an encouraging pattern for high impact factor.

Infiltration of Helicobacter pylori in the gastric mucosa.

It is our hypothesis that if Helicobacter pylori could be demonstrated conclusively to have transgressed the mucosal surface into the lamina propria, this would help explain how H pylori recruits inflammatory cells. We report our immunohistochemical and electron microscopic findings that demonstrate that H pylori can be detected in the lamina propria of the stomach, offering evidence of its invasive potential. We stained 67 endoscopic gastric biopsy specimens with Warthin-Starry silver and immunoperoxidase stains for H pylori. In addition, transmission electron microscopy was performed on 1 case. The presence of surface H pylori was associated significantly with active (P < .0001) and chronic (P < .0001) inflammation. H pylori could not be identified in the lamina propria using the Warthin-Starry silver stain alone. Immunoreactivity for H pylori in the lamina propria was detected in 20 (30%) of 67 gastric biopsy specimens. Transmission electron microscopy confirmed the immunohistochemical findings. H pylori can infiltrate the lamina propria of the gastric mucosa, thereby proving morphologic evidence of its invasive capability.

Increasing women's leadership in academic medicine: report of the AAMC Project Implementation Committee.

The AAMC's Increasing Women's Leadership Project Implementation Committee examined four years of data on the advancement of women in academic medicine. With women comprising only 14% of tenured faculty and 12% of full professors, the committee concludes that the progress achieved is inadequate. Because academic medicine needs all the leaders it can develop to address accelerating institutional and societal needs, the waste of most women's potential is of growing importance. Only institutions able to recruit and retain women will be likely to maintain the best housestaff and faculty. The long-term success of academic health centers is thus inextricably linked to the development of women leaders. The committee therefore recommends that medical schools, teaching hospitals, and academic societies (1) emphasize faculty diversity in departmental reviews, evaluating department chairs on their development of women faculty; (2) target women's professional development needs within the context of helping all faculty maximize their faculty appointments, including helping men become more effective mentors of women; (3) assess which institutional practices tend to favor men's over women's professional development, such as defining "academic success" as largely an independent act and rewarding unrestricted availability to work (i.e., neglect of personal life); (4) enhance the effectiveness of search committees to attract women candidates, including assessment of group process and of how candidates' qualifications are defined and evaluated; and (5) financially support institutional Women in Medicine programs and the AAMC Women Liaison Officer and regularly monitor the representation of women at senior ranks.

CytoJournal's move to fund Open Access.

CytoJournal is published by an independent publisher BioMed Central, which is committed to ensuring that the peer-reviewed biomedical research is Open Access. Since its launch, BioMed Central has graciously supported the processing of all the articles published during CytoJournal's first 6 months. However, for long term viability, CytoJournal has to achieve financial viability to support publication expenses. From 1st March, 2005, authors will be asked by the publisher to pay a flat article-processing charge. This editorial discusses how a significant proportion of authors may not have to pay this fee directly under a variety of different mechanisms such as institutional and society memberships with BioMed Central.

CytoJournal joins 'open access' philosophy.

Welcome to CytoJournal! We would like to introduce you to your journal, one that is run by and for the scientific cytopathology community with incontestable benefits of Open Access, and support from Cytopathology Fondation, Inc http://www.cytopathology-foundation.org/index.html. CytoJournal is a peer-reviewed, PubMed indexed, online journal, publishing research in the field of cytopathology and related areas, with world wide free access. Authors submitting to CutoJournal retain the copyright to their hard earned work.