This issue heralds in the 25th anniversary of JAAPA. I am honored to have been there at the very beginning, and I appreciate the opportunity to share a few memories of getting the Journal off the ground. When I think back to the early years of JAAPA, I picture myself surrounded—no, practically buried—by paper. I had the messiest office at AAPA; people could hardly see if I was in there for the stacks of manuscripts, clipped articles, magazines, and folders waiting to be filed. 
The accumulation of medical journals functioned as my office furniture.


Why did my vision for JAAPA require so much paper? Back in those days, an author was required to submit three hard copies of a manuscript. Once the manuscript arrived at AAPA's headquarters, it inevitably spawned more paper, depending on how many peer reviewers were assigned to critique the article. The peer reviewers were sent more paper, in the way of manuscript evaluation forms that they were expected to complete and return in an expedited manner. Depending on my assessment and the opinions of the peer reviewers, the author would be sent correspondence, usually several pages worth, outlining revisions that were required if the article was to ever see the light of day. Vast forests were saved the day Tanya Gregory took over as editor in 2001; she catapulted the Journal into modern times by transitioning all JAAPA transactions to the electronic realm. 


Paging through old issues, I remember how much work was initially involved in creating this journal. Establishing an editorial board, writing a statement of editorial purpose, developing article submission requirements and criteria for acceptance or rejection, soliciting potential authors, setting deadlines, and communicating with the publisher (then C.V. Mosby) were among those tasks. We devoted much care to setting up JAAPA's peer review process and teaching clinicians how to assess and suggest improvements for articles. As a consequence, the journal's quality continued to improve, leading to a huge milestone in 1999 when it was accepted into the National Library of Medicine's revered Medline database. 


The PA profession was only 20 years old when JAAPA was launched. There was so much going on. Leaders were making inroads with organized medicine and with regulators to reduce barriers to our effective utilization. Our clinical roles expanded, and specialization spread. To mirror the maturation of the profession, JAAPA planned and published special issues focusing on preventive medicine, medical care to the underserved, surgical specialties, multicultural medicine, and public health. To voice PAs' opinions on key socioeconomic and health care policies, we published guest editorials on controversies and trends in health care and conducted roundtables on topics such as obesity, the HIV epidemic, and managed care. 


As the saying goes, as much as things change, they seem to stay the same. Can you believe that in the summer of JAAPA's first year, the following sentence appeared in Marshall Sinback's President's Message: "The radical changes that have transformed health care delivery systems and the financing of health care will continue into the next decade, requiring PAs to remain involved in legislative, regulatory, and policy making activities that affect the profession."1 Does that sound familiar? That was in 1988! After a quarter of a century, are we really only now at the brink of change?


Much of the credit for JAAPA's success goes to the Journal 's editorial boards and the staff of our publishers, who worked creatively and tirelessly to meet the challenges of putting together a journal that would appeal to such a diverse profession. Some of the thorniest issues, like how to satisfy PAs in subspecialties or how much content should be allocated to research, came up time and time again at our editorial board meetings and are probably still being debated today. And thanks of course to the PA authors, who chiseled precious time out of hectic clinic schedules to contribute to their journal.


Twenty-five years later, my den at home is as cluttered as my office once was at AAPA. I have bound JAAPA volumes dating back to 1988 strewn all over the floor. This trip down memory lane has made me realize that journals in general have become unbound, unleashed, liberated by technologic advances that give readers much greater and much faster access to needed information. Yet, even as I learn to use point-of-care modalities to help me with clinical decision-making in my practice, I still bring my print medical journals with me everywhere. I turn first to JAAPA, impressed with each issue and the progress the journal has made in the 25 years since it launched, the broad spectrum that it now encompasses, and the tremendous future it has yet to cover. JAAPA


Leslie A. Kole, PA-C, was founding editor of JAAJAAPA and worked on staff for 17 years. She works part time at Mobile Med, J Janssen Family Medicine, and Pain Management Specialists in Montgomery County, Maryland. She is a member of AAPA's Professional Practice Commission.

REFERENCE


1. Sinback MF. President's message. JAAPA. 1988;1(4):253.