Welcome, readers!

Abstract

Editorial It is a great pleasure for me to write this editorial in my role as the new editor of Dermatology Practical & Conceptual. With this new role I face, equally, a challenge and an honor, given that I follow the footsteps of the esteemed personalities of the former editors, A. Bernard Ackerman, who founded the journal under the name Dermatopathology Practical & Conceptual, succeeded by Almut Böer-Auer and then Harald Kittler, who renamed the journal Dermatology Practical & Conceptual. I wish to give special mention to Harald Kittler, who I personally know, not only as an outstanding and brilliant researcher and clinician, but who I consider a true and unique friend. Thanks to Harald’s efforts and passion, Dermatology Practical & Conceptual has turned out to be a modern, innovative and dynamic journal. He always respected the historical fundamentals and basis of this journal, namely clinical morphology. His own respect for clinical morphology is reflected in the changes that the journal underwent during his editorship. When Harald took over the editorship three years ago, he decided to change the title. The change of only that one word in the title of the journal encompassed the broader aims and scope of it. In this way, he opened the journal to all aspects of morphology, including macroscopic morphology, morphology related to new non-invasive diagnostic tools and to traditional microscopic histopathology. But Harald did much more for the journal. During his editorship, Dermatology Practical & Conceptual became an open-access online journal, offering free access to both readers and authors. Moreover, Dermatology Practical & Conceptual became the official journal of the International Dermoscopy Society, which accounts currently for more than 6700 members all over the world and which promotes research, education and advancement of dermoscopy. Most exciting, thanks to his efforts and those of the production team of Derm101 and the valuable contributions of researchers and the editorial team, the journal has succeeded in being included to PubMed Central. All articles published starting with the first issue of Dermatology Practical & Conceptual appear in full in the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) digital archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature, also known as PubMed Central (PMC). This also means that PMC submits a citation to PubMed as soon as the article is live in PMC. Besides his passion for the journal and clinical morphology, I would also like to point another aspect of Harald’s personality, which can be described as unconventional. It is not surprising that he earned, not only the plaudits of his colleagues, but also severe criticism for his work. With regard to this aspect of Harald’s character, I would like to cite the words of our friend Geppi Argenziano, who described the need for outliers like Harald, especially after Bernie’s death, as follows: “Bernie Ackerman was the charismatic and loud critical voice in the dermatologic establishment. We are fortunate to have Harald among us, who continues to represent a critical voice in dermatology.” I cannot but fully agree with this statement. As the new editor of Dermatology Practical & Conceptual, I will do my best to guarantee sufficient space for critical thought and unconventional viewpoints in clinical dermatology. That being said, clinical morphology will continue to represent the traditional aim of the journal. However, as we foresee that the number of article submissions increasing because of its inclusion in PubMed, I think that the journal should be also open to evolving fields linked to clinical morphology, such as translational clinical and molecular dermatology, dermato-oncology, dermatologic surgery and cosmetic and aesthetic dermatology. These are relevant fields in clinical dermatology and I believe that Dermatology Practical & Conceptual can only benefit from being open to some of these, perhaps not traditionally morphological, but still closely related dermatologic subspecialties. As the rapidly and continuously growing knowledge in these different fields of clinical dermatology cannot be followed by a single person, I plan to work with a team of section editors in order to guarantee a high scientific standard and timely peer-review process for all submitted manuscripts. It is my great pleasure to introduce in this issue the new sections and section editors, to whom I am grateful for their willingness to contribute with their knowledge to the future directions of Dermatology Practical & Conceptual. I am happy to welcome, in alphabetic order, Maria Gonzalez, Athanassis Kyrgidis, Aimilios Lallas, Vito di Lernia, Elvira Moscarella, John Paoli, Michael Skerlev and Alex Stratigos as the new section editors for Cosmetic and Aesthetic Dermatology, Statistics, General Dermatology, Auto-immune and Blistering Diseases, Pediatric Dermatology, Dermatologic Surgery, Mycosis and Sexually Transmitted Diseases and Dermato-Oncology, respectively. I also want to express my thanks to Alon Scope and Jeff Keir for their exceptional past work on the journal and for having accepted to continue collaborating with us in the future. Alon will continue as section editor for Diagnostic Imaging and Dermatoscopy and Jeff as section editor of Dermatology in Primary Care. I would also like to thank Mark Hurt, who is responsible for the book reviews of the journal, as well as the many colleagues of the Editorial Board, who collaborated so well in the past and, hopefully, will continue their work also in the future. All section editors are not only renown experts in their fields, but they are all outstanding critical thinkers who will guarantee and maintain the critical spirit of the journal. I am proud to be part of this wonderful team. Finally, what would be the value of a journal without its contributors? I thank all past and current contributors for sharing their scientific work with the dermatological community. In the spirit of a young and modern journal, we see it as an obligation to support, especially, young researchers and thus we invite them to actively contribute to the future content of the journal.