The Beginning of a Term: Looking Forward with Hope and Anticipation

Norman E. Bolus

Norman E. Bolus, MSPH, MPH, CNMT Editor, JNMT

As I begin my term as editor of JNMT, I first want to thank Frances Neagley for a job well done over the last 5 years as editor and for helping to smooth the transition. Frances will serve as a consulting editor for JNMT. I am sure I will have questions for her in the weeks and months ahead concerning issues with JNMT, and I hope to utilize her experience. I would also like to thank a new group of consulting editors to JNMT, who are all people I have worked with in the past in various areas of nuclear medicine. I look forward to guidance on issues that will arise as I learn more about the role of editor. In addition, most of the associate editors from previous years have agreed to stay on, and I appreciate their experience and help, as well, with the journal. The last 6 months of 2011 have been a learning process for me as I have been taking over the duties of editor. Thus far, I have learned of several interesting areas in which you, the reader, can help JNMT:

We need more technologist reviewers for JNMT. Although I would like to continue the practice of asking reviewers to review only once a year, as Frances did, it is difficult when we do not have enough overall technologist reviewers. Do not discount your ability to review. If you have experience in the field and have been working in a respective area for about 5 years, your experience counts and you are eligible to become a reviewer. This service to JNMT, which is a peer-reviewed journal, can aid you in giving back to the field, and you can add this service to your curriculum vitae or resume. If interested, you can sign up via the JNMT Web portal at http://submit-jnm.snmjournals.org/.
If you are a reviewer for JNMT and have changed your e-mail address, JNMT probably does not have your new e-mail address. Apparently, many reviewers think that by updating their e-mail address with the SNM upon membership renewal each year, their e-mail address is automatically updated for JNMT as well. This is not true. The 2 systems are separate. You must sign on to the JNMT Web portal at http://submit-jnm.snmjournals.org/ and update your e-mail address each time it changes for you to be contacted to review an article.
Physicians and scientists who are SNM members do not automatically get both journals as technologists do. I was surprised to find out that technologists who are members of SNMTS receive both JNM and JNMT as part of their annual fee but that physicians and scientists who are members of SNM must pay a surcharge to receive JNMT. Therefore, if you are still receiving the paper version of JNMT, when you are done with your copy you might want to pass it along to a colleague who may not be familiar with JNMT.

One of my goals is to increase the number of continuing education (CE) opportunities in each issue of the journal. I would like to thank outgoing CE editor Elpida Crawford for a great job as CE editor and welcome Kristen Waterstram-Rich, who has taken on this role. I am trying something in this issue of JNMT that we may or may not continue: reprinting a CE article from JNM. If you have already taken advantage of this CE opportunity from JNM, you cannot receive credit twice. However, if you have not yet taken advantage of this opportunity, you may do so now. We will track how many new submissions for CE credit occur from this reprint to decide if we will continue to reprint CE articles that appear to be more relevant for technologists. So, if you like this opportunity and want this feature to continue, please read the reprinted CE article and apply for credits via the online quiz. We also have an original CE article in this issue, as well as a practice guideline for which you can receive CE credit.

Other goals that I have for JNMT will be rolled out as I go forward this year. I would like to make the journal more interactive, with online chats or blogs about articles or case studies. The cover is an attempt to start this process, but because of logistics the answer to the cover image question is printed on the table-of-contents page rather than appearing online. I will be adding ongoing columns on our SNM chapters and relevant interesting news such as interviews of recent graduates of the NMAA program. I would like to add situational judgments with an online interactive feature as well, and I encourage and solicit more commentaries and perspectives on a range of issues concerning nuclear medicine. In the June issue, I hope to start a feature on some workers behind the scenes within SNM who maintain our society and do all the things necessary for a society to exist. I also encourage feedback on what can make the journal better and will always be willing to try new things.

Finally, a personal tribute: I would like to dedicate my first issue of JNMT to the memory of my dear older brother, Herbert A. Bolus, who passed away from sudden cardiac death on November 5, 2011, at the age of 55 years. I am not sure he was aware that, in part, his being a high school mathematics teacher led to my becoming an educator in nuclear medicine technology. The importance he placed on faith, family, and friends will live in me and our family. I would like to thank everyone who shared words of encouragement. Certainly, the following quote by Mahatma Gandhi is an appropriate remembrance of my brother and the way I try to live my life:“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”—Mahatma Gandhi