JAGS 38:177, 1990
Geriatrics and General Medical Journals Don Riesenberg, MD, and George D. Lundberg, M D
'e congratulate Morley and colleagues on a piece of work' that deserves scrutiny by editors of general medical journals. They find very little change, over the last two decades, in the percentage of articlescontainingspecific mention of patients aged 65 years and over, despite the remarkable increase in health-care utilization by this age group during the same time period. They also look at internal medicine journals and conclude that, with the exception of the Archives of Internal Medicine, all journals studied, including our own, have not reflected this increased utilization. As the authors state, their method of determining geriatric content "meant that some articles might be excluded." Their search for subject age-groups would miss, for example, such 1987 Journal of the American Medical Association articles as a State of the Art/Review on deliriumZand a CONTEMPO summary of recent developments in geriatric medicine3 (we checked). I mention 1987 because topics on "aging/elderly" appeared more often in our volume indexes for that year than all but nine other subjects. (Medical education, substance abuse, and, as Morley suspects, AIDS were among the topics appearingmore frequently in volumes 257 and 258.) This brings us to the heart of the matter: a general medical journal must try to be all things to all readers. We are privileged to see thousands of manuscripts each year, some 80% to 90% of which we must reject owing to, among other things, space limitations. As geriatrics cries out for more space in our journal, so, also, do other subjects.
W
From thelournal ofthe American Medical Association. Dr.Riesenberg is the Senior Editor and Dr.Lundberg is the Editor. Address correspondence to Don Riesenberg, MD, Journal of the American Medical Association, 535 North Dearbom Street, Chicago, IL 60610.
0 1990 by the American Geriatrics Society
We congratulate the Archives of Internal Medicine for surpassing other internal medicine journals with a 39% increase in geriatrics content over the study period. That journal is a member of our editorial consortium,' through which some of those thousands of manuscripts mentioned above h d an appropriate outlet. After review we may, with the author's permission, offer a paper to the Archives editor (the h a 1 decision is his) if, for reasons other than quality, we decide not to publish it in the Journal of the American Medical Association. We suspect that modesty prevents Drs.Morley and Solomon from mentioning another, obvious factor. The flat line in their Figure 2 surely reflects the continually increasing quality and prestige of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. Nevertheless, we are very much aware of the "geriatric imperative" and its importance to the general medical reader. One of us (D. R.) is a teacher of geriatric medicine. We both actively recruit to our journal high-quality research on health care of the aging, and we assure readers that Morley et al's study reinforces those efforts.
REFERENCES 1. Morley JE,Vogel K, Solomon DH: Prevalence of geriatric articles in general medical journals. J Am Geriatr Soc 38:173-176,1990 2. Liwwski Z1: Delirium (acute confusional states). . .JAMA 2!%:1789- 1792,1987 3. Cassel CK: Geriatrics. IAMA 258:2248-2250.1987 4. Radulescu G, Lundberg GD: The journals of the AMA. from cooperation to consortium. JAMA256:1342-1343.1986
Geriatrics and General Medical Journals Don Riesenberg, MD, and George D. Lundberg, M D
'e congratulate Morley and colleagues on a piece of work' that deserves scrutiny by editors of general medical journals. They find very little change, over the last two decades, in the percentage of articlescontainingspecific mention of patients aged 65 years and over, despite the remarkable increase in health-care utilization by this age group during the same time period. They also look at internal medicine journals and conclude that, with the exception of the Archives of Internal Medicine, all journals studied, including our own, have not reflected this increased utilization. As the authors state, their method of determining geriatric content "meant that some articles might be excluded." Their search for subject age-groups would miss, for example, such 1987 Journal of the American Medical Association articles as a State of the Art/Review on deliriumZand a CONTEMPO summary of recent developments in geriatric medicine3 (we checked). I mention 1987 because topics on "aging/elderly" appeared more often in our volume indexes for that year than all but nine other subjects. (Medical education, substance abuse, and, as Morley suspects, AIDS were among the topics appearingmore frequently in volumes 257 and 258.) This brings us to the heart of the matter: a general medical journal must try to be all things to all readers. We are privileged to see thousands of manuscripts each year, some 80% to 90% of which we must reject owing to, among other things, space limitations. As geriatrics cries out for more space in our journal, so, also, do other subjects.
W
From thelournal ofthe American Medical Association. Dr.Riesenberg is the Senior Editor and Dr.Lundberg is the Editor. Address correspondence to Don Riesenberg, MD, Journal of the American Medical Association, 535 North Dearbom Street, Chicago, IL 60610.
0 1990 by the American Geriatrics Society
We congratulate the Archives of Internal Medicine for surpassing other internal medicine journals with a 39% increase in geriatrics content over the study period. That journal is a member of our editorial consortium,' through which some of those thousands of manuscripts mentioned above h d an appropriate outlet. After review we may, with the author's permission, offer a paper to the Archives editor (the h a 1 decision is his) if, for reasons other than quality, we decide not to publish it in the Journal of the American Medical Association. We suspect that modesty prevents Drs.Morley and Solomon from mentioning another, obvious factor. The flat line in their Figure 2 surely reflects the continually increasing quality and prestige of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. Nevertheless, we are very much aware of the "geriatric imperative" and its importance to the general medical reader. One of us (D. R.) is a teacher of geriatric medicine. We both actively recruit to our journal high-quality research on health care of the aging, and we assure readers that Morley et al's study reinforces those efforts.
REFERENCES 1. Morley JE,Vogel K, Solomon DH: Prevalence of geriatric articles in general medical journals. J Am Geriatr Soc 38:173-176,1990 2. Liwwski Z1: Delirium (acute confusional states). . .JAMA 2!%:1789- 1792,1987 3. Cassel CK: Geriatrics. IAMA 258:2248-2250.1987 4. Radulescu G, Lundberg GD: The journals of the AMA. from cooperation to consortium. JAMA256:1342-1343.1986
