Volume 45 Number 2

“To get to know, to discover, to publish—this is the destiny of a scientist,” François Arago

As we continue to celebrate the 45^th anniversary of the WCET^® Journal, we thought it was a good time to reflect on the journal’s journey over the years and what we expect in the future.

As stated in our 40^th anniversary commemorative magazine (2018)¹, the very first journal was published in 1980 and Nortrud Schindzielorz Loy from Germany was its first editor. The journal was established with the generous help of Convatec.

As Nortrud stepped down from her position two years later Norma N Gill took over the role until 1986. Patricia Blackley, from Australia, then served in the position until 1989, followed by Donna Bull (Australia) until 1995, Patricia Blackley spent another two years in the position until 1996. Julia Thompson (Australia) took over the job from 1998 to 2003. Dr Elizabeth A Ayello (USA), now Editor Emeritus, served as Editor from 2004 to 2011 followed by Dr Karen Zulkoswski (USA) until 2018, when Dr Jenny Prentice (Australia) took over. In order to recognise the amount of work it represents and the need for specific professional skills and experience, the position was reinvented from an Executive Board (EB) voluntary position, to a paid position under Cambridge Media. We have a close working relationship with Jenny and Greg Paull our publisher. Annual Journal reports are provided, we meet face-to-face and virtually on a regular basis, allowing EB to keep up to date.

Cambridge Media has been WCET^®s publisher since 1996. Greg Paull and Dr Elizabeth A Ayello worked together to establish the Sustaining Journal Partnership (SJP)² model and also the professional translations into languages other than English (Chinese, French, Portugese and Spanish).

The WCET^® Journal has been the official Journal of the International and Interprofessional Wound Care Group (IIWCG) since 2017. We have also had an agreement with the Advances in Skin and Wound Care Journal³ since 2019, aimed at increasing publication and dissemination of research articles to a larger worldwide audience. Dr Ayello was also responsible for introducing the President and President Elect Joint Journal and BullETin editorials.

Starting as a journal of just a few pages, it has grown into an extensive scientific peer-reviewed quarterly journal, including Journal Supplements. At its initiation in 1986 the journal was distributed in 35 countries, today this has grown to over 66 countries spanning the globe. Through the experience gained via the indexing process and in particular the attempts to get indexed with Medline,⁴ the journal quality, design and accessibility has improved tremendously. We take this opportunity again to deeply appreciate the contribution of all our authors who have submitted manuscripts, we are grateful for the work of all peer reviewers and to our Editorial Board members led by our current Journal Editor and Publisher, not forgetting the support of our seven SJPs (Calmoseptine®, Coloplast, Convatec, Dansac, DeRoyal^®, Hollister^® and Welland), including those supporting the four professional translations into Chinese, French, Portuguese and Spanish (Calmoseptine^® and Coloplast China). We also take the opportunity to deeply appreciate and thank industry who have supported past WCET^® Supplements, we hope you will continue your support in the future. We also thank you for contributing to manuscript’ submissions and in helping authors to get published in our Journal. Many thanks for your contribution and support in helping us to keep up to date regarding products and their specifications, bringing us together to make better meaningful decisions and provide better care. WCET^® and its Journal would not be where it is today without you.

Many thanks to all of you for continuing to improve your online profile data on the website members page, this is essential in ensuring you receive the English version hard copy of each issue in the post, which also reduces the number of returned Journals to our publisher. Many thanks to our management company (Barcami Lane) team in their support in making improvements possible and easier.

On this important Journal milestone, the WCET^® Executive Board is excited and honoured to present a new initiative to start in 2025.

The “WCET^® Dr Elizabeth A Ayello Journal Article of the Year Award”.

You will find more details in a forthcoming News and views about the purpose of this award and how it will be rolled out. As this is an annual award we hope to present the 2024 awardee in the WCET^® Journal issue 4 2025, and the 2025 award in a 2026 issue, so please stay tuned in to find out if you will be the 2024 winner. We hope it will encourage many new authors to submit their manuscripts ready for the upcoming year awards.

In advance, we thank the members of the committee who will be taking part in the ranking of the top three articles, and to Dr Jenny Prentice who will make the final decision on the winner. This award is open to receive sponsorship, if any SJPs or other industry partners are interested in contributing towards presenting a prize for this award please contact us via admin@wcetn.org. Sponsors logos will be added to the certificate presented to the winner.

We cannot wait to make this very first winner announcement.

Good news does not come along everyday and so we are pleased to announce that our Scopus indexing⁵ application is underway, we hope to get a positive response very soon. We will then work on applying again for Medline as soon as we are eligible to reapply.

As it is said “never a third without a second”, please join us in our prayers but also by submitting your manuscripts, which will help us to reach these important goals.

As our Biennial Congress is coming soon, the invitation for SJPs to support the upcoming Congress Journal Supplement has been sent out. As always, the first to respond to the invitation email will get this opportunity. All attendees at our 2026 joint Congress will receive a hard copy of the supplement into their delegate bags and it will be posted online along with our Journal, as free access, please remember we have a wide reach as it is professionally translated into four languages other than English.

We would like to take this opportunity to recognise that our sister organisations also produce journals in our tri-specialty field. We would like to highlight some other organisations with publications in English regarding stoma and wound care, stoma and continence care or stoma care only: Australian Association of Stoma Nurses (AASTN)⁶; Association of Stoma Care Nurses in UK (ASCN UK)⁷; European Council of Enterostomal Therapists (ECET)⁸; and Wound Ostomy Continence Nurses (WOCN^®) Society.⁹

We take the opportunity to welcome a brand-new journal from Nurse Specialised in Wound Ostomy Continence Canada (NSWOCC^®): the Canadian Journal of Wound, Ostomy and Continence¹⁰ which has taken over from their previous publication NSWOC Advance. We wish them the best of luck with this more scientific publication. Thanks to them for allowing us to keep publishing a WCET® President message¹¹, showing our connection and ongoing close collaboration. In addition, they have now an electronic newsletter, called The Integrity, that goes to all NSWOCC^® Members.

As a sister society, we also have to mention a new wound care journal, from the World Union of Wound Health Societies (WUWHS), called The Global Wound Care Journal¹². As well as to mention the journal of the International Continence Society (ICS)¹³ with whom we have a Memorandum Of Understanding (MOU).

Finally, we could not finish without reflecting back on a quote from our Immediate Past President and Life Member, Dr Elizabeth A Ayello, at the closing of our 2022 joint WCET^®/ WOCN^® congress: WCET^® also stands for “Write, Care/Core/Change/Communicate/Create, Educate/Evidence, and Team”.

So let us W-C-E-T together and let the world know about your work!

Sincerely

Laurent and Denise

Author(s)

Laurent O Chabal
BSc (CBP) RN OncPall (Cert) Dip (WH) ET EAWT
WCET^® President 2022–2026

Denise Hibbert
MSc-WHTR RGN BSc DipHE ONC STN FSSCRS
WCET^® President-Elect 2022–2026

References

1. https://cdn.ymaws.com/wcetn.org/resource/resmgr/publications_/WCET_40th_Anniversary_Commem.pdf
2. https://wcetn.org/page/SustainingJournalPartners
3. https://journals.lww.com/aswcjournal/pages/default.aspx
4. https://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/indexfaq.html
5. https://www.centre-mersenne.org/en/indexing-your-journal-in-scopus/
6. https://stomaltherapy.au/journal-of-stomal-therapy-australia/
7. https://www.britishjournalofnursing.com
8. https://ecet-stomacare.eu/scientific-publications/ecet-supplement-gastrointestinal-nursing
9. https://journals.lww.com/jwocnonline/pages/default.aspx
10. https://cjwoc.ca/index.php/cjwoc
11. https://www.nswoc.ca/post/a-message-from-wcet-a-year-to-remember-and-a-journey-to-celebrate
12. https://globalwoundcarejournal.com
13. https://www.ics.org/journal