I am pleased to present the first 2007 issue of Archives of Medical Science (AMS). I hope the articles included are interesting for you and will encourage you to read future as well as archive issues of AMS. I look forward to your suggestions and opinions. I will be glad to receive any comments or letters to the Editor regarding the manuscripts we have already published. This form of communication between authors and readers is the best way to exchange opinions and engage in matter-of-fact debate. First I would like to thank the people who helped me with the current Archives of Medical Science, especially our Publishing Editor, Ms Marzena Demska, for her well-aimed advice and commitment, and great patience in this exceptionally hard work. I would also like to invite all AMS’s Readers to acquaint themselves with the great editorial article by Dr. Bernhardt Schaller, entitled: Medical Education and the Bologna Process, and review/educational article by Prof. Cezary Watala, entitled: Sample size and significance - somewhere between statistical power and judgment prostration, which is a continuation of the subject, having started in the 4th issue of AMS in 2005. I would like also encourage you read our original papers, short communication and cases reports. I am sure they will be of interest. I’m pleased to inform you that since the 4th of January Archives of Medical Science has been indexed in Science Citation Index Expanded and in late 2009 the first Impact Factor (IF) will be calculated. For that reason I have invited great, experienced scientists from all over the world in order to help the Editorial Staff with the increasing the number of good submissions and as the consequence to receive high impact factor. I would like to kindly welcome them and wish to have much satisfaction working with us. In few consecutive issues of AMS I will try to introduce them shortly: Prof. Steven M. Donn is a Professor of Pediatrics and Chief of the Division of Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine at C.S. Mott Children's Hospital of the University of Michigan Health System in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA. He obtained his undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan, his M.D. degree from Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana, his postgraduate training in pediatrics at the University of Vermont in Burlington, and his fellowship training in neonatal-perinatal medicine from the University of Michigan. His research interests include high technology support of neonatal respiratory failure and neonatal brain injury. He has been elected to the Society for Pediatric Research and the American Pediatric Society and is a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics and serves on its Committee on Medical Liability and Risk Management. Dr. Hirozumi Sawai acquired a Ph.D. in Nagoya City University Graduate School of Medical Sciences. She is an experienced surgical oncologist, now specializing in Hapato-Biliary and pancreatic surgery, and have an extensive knowledge relative to surgical oncology, cancer cell biology, and signaling pathways in cancer cells. She has a research experience as an Research Fellow in Hirshberg Laboratories for Pancreatic Cancer Research, Department of Surgery, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California. She has written extensively on the subject of hapato-biliary and pancreatic surgery, pancreatic cancer cell biology, and singal transductuin of cancer. Dr. Florian Lesage (Ph.D., 1995) is Director of Research at INSERM (Instittut National de La Santé et de La Recherche Médicale). He is a molecular biologist with extensive experience in ion channel cloning, expression and gene inactivation. In the laboratory led by Prof. Michel Lazdunski, he discovered a novel class on ion channels called 2P-domain potassium channels (K2P). Florian Lesage’s research group is aimed to a better understanding of the structure, physiology and physiopathology of these channels. This includes fundamental projects (K2P channel proteomic for instance) and more clinical aspects (ion channels in genetic and acquired neuronal disorders. I would like also inform you that we have just opened the Editorial System of Archives of Medical Science to ease the submission and editing process. Thus since now all manuscripts written in English should be submitted to Editorial Office by electronic Editorial System at the following URL: http://panel.termedia.pl/?ams. Authors are requested not to submit the manuscripts by post or e-mail. We would like to mention you that since the 4th issue 2006 of AMS there is a nominal charge (=70 Euro) from authors for publication in our journal. This is strictly connected with the journal’s development plans, e.g. with the forthcoming increase in issues published per year (bimonthly) and with the indexation of AMS in payable medical databases. I would like to inform you that Archives of Medical Science has already been indexed in: ISI Science Citation Index Expanded, EMBASE, Chemical Abstracts CAS, CAB Abstracts, SciFinder, Scopus, EBSCO A-to-Z, GEOBASE, Index Copernicus (IC), National Library of Medicine (NLM), Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Nutrition Abstracts and Reviews Series A, Global Health Databases, Abstracts on Hygiene and Communicable Diseases, EMNursing, Compendex, KBN (MNII), Mosby Yearbooks, J-Gate, Review of Medical and Veterinary Entomology, British Library online, OpenMED, Geneva Foundation Free Medical Journals and Polish Medical Library (GBL We are still waiting for the results of indexation in Index Medicus/Medline (by the end of March). Finally I would like inform you that following recent evaluation AMS has received a new 2006 value in the Index Copernicus Database: 6.16 IC (5 pt. KBN). Once again, I would like to invite all scientists to join our Review Board. In my opinion it is a great chance to widen their knowledge and to meet great scientists from all over the world. You should simply register as reviewers in the Editorial System at the following web page: http://panel.termedia.pl/?ams, and mark these specializations from which you would like to receive manuscripts for review. Finally, I am happy to announce that the average duration of the review process for manuscripts accepted for the first issue 2007 was only about 4 weeks. All members of the Editorial Staff/Board of Archives of Medical Science deserve credit for this achievement.
Happy reading!
Maciej Banach, MD, PhD
Editor-in-Chief
