Change in Editorship: A Tribute to the Outgoing Editor-in-Chief

Biosketch

Some hallmarks in this remarkable and illustrious career: Harald Breivik received his medical degree in 1965 and defended his doctoral thesis at the University of Oslo in 1972. Following Fulbright-fellowship-training at the University of Pittsburgh Health Science Center, Pennsylvania, Harald Breivik became board certified in Anesthesiology. Harald Breivik was appointed a full clinical professorship at Oslo University and was a consultant at Oslo University Hospital, Rikshospitalet. Harald Breivik has been a guest professor at University of Texas, San Antonio, TX, USA; Presbyterian Hospital Columbia University, New York, NY, USA, and University of Bern, Switzerland.

Harald Breivik has been the Editor of several international textbooks: Postoperative Pain Management (Bailliere’s Clinical Anaesthesiology 1995), Clinical Pain Management – Practical Applications and Procedures (Arnold, Hodder Headline Group 2003, 2008), and Pain: Best Practice and Research Compendium (Elsevier, 2007).

Notably, Harald Breivik is a founding member and past Honorary Secretary, of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP), and past president of the Scandinavian Association for the Study of Pain (SASP), the Norwegian Pain Society, as well as the European Federation of IASP-Chapters (EFIC). Harald Breivik was Vice-President of the World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists (WFSA).

Harald Breivik is honorary member of the British Pain Society, the Slovak Pain Society, the Norwegian Pain Society, EFIC and IASP, the German and the Norwegian Societies of Anaesthesiologists, elected Fellow of the Royal College of Anaesthetists (UK), the College of Anaesthetists of Ireland, and the Faculty of Pain Medicine of the College of Anaesthetists of Ireland.

Harald Breivik is Knight of 1st Class of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav.

Harald Breivik has published more than 400 scientific publications and textbook chapters ranging from anesthesiology, emergency medicine, intensive care, to pain management, and the physiology and pathophysiology of pain. The most referenced papers, aptly illustrating the impact of Harald Breivik’s research, “Survey of chronic pain in Europe: prevalence, impact on daily life, and treatment” [1] and “Assessment of pain” [2] have been cited nearly 5,000 and 1,500 times, respectively. The h-index (citations/publication) is an impressive 42.

Editorships

Regarding editorship of medical journals, Harald Breivik was Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the European Journal of Pain from 2000 to 2008. After several years of planning and persistent hard work Harald Breivik succeeded in collaboration with Elsevier to launch the first issue of the Scandinavian Journal of Pain published for the founding meeting of the new SASP in May 2009. The first regular issue was available in an e-version NOV-2009 [3], accompanied by an Editorial titled “Scandinavian Journal of Pain: A networking and publishing tool for pain researchers and pain clinicians in the Nordic countries.” The objectives of the Journal were delineated and deserve a re-representation (Box 1).

Ever since, the journal has been published four times per year, including one supplemental issue dedicated to abstracts from the annual SASP meeting. Over the years, the inflow of manuscripts has increased steadily, and in early 2017 the MEDLINE-indexing of the Scandinavian Journal of Pain was approved, indicating that a significant milestone had been reached. Abstracts of 500 words and editorial comments to most articles were available in the printed journal; however, the full papers were only available in an e-version.

The first issue in 2018 signaled further progress. In collaboration with the highly esteemed academic publishing firm De Gruyter, the full papers were now included in the printed edition of a handsomely designed journal. The annual inflow is currently around 200 manuscripts. Furthermore, citations are increasing and the journal receives growing attention – not only among professionals. In 2019, research published in SJPAIN was mentioned in more than 5,000 Tweets and over 100 news articles.

Legacy

The impressive biosketch of Harald Breivik is of top-notch quality, second to few, and does not require any further comments.

What about the Journal? The Scandinavian countries have a long and distinguished tradition of excellent scientific and medical contributions to pain research. Harald Breivik has managed not only to reinforce this tradition but even has succeeded in creating a comprehensive forum where pain researchers and pain clinicians from all over the world can discuss and disseminate scientific results. Furthermore, the Scandinavian Journal of Pain is the official organ of the Scandinavian Association for the Study of Pain and its membership journal.

Working as an Editor-in-Chief Harald Breivik has demonstrated a near limitless patience with manuscripts containing an inner core of quality while being “not quite ready to fly yet.” Harald Breivik has been helping with linguistical and structural honing of these manuscripts until perfection has been reached. Harald Breivik has demonstrated great empathy and understanding for researchers from countries lacking high-profile scientific resources by assisting in different ways to deliver the research group’s message. However, maintaining the high quality of the published papers is mirrored in the manuscript rejection rate of 45%.

Interestingly, almost every invitation to a reviewer is followed by a customized, personalized message from the Editor-in-Chief explaining why this specific reviewer was chosen for this “very important assignment.” An unquenchable curiosity and enthusiasm for every aspect of original research on the nature of pain, pain mechanisms, and pain management has been bestowed upon the outgoing Editor-in-Chief and has unambiguously benefitted the readers.

The ingoing Editor-in-Chief has known Harald Breivik professionally for decades. Harald always radiates empathy, humour, integrity, intellect, vitality and has a profound interest in fellow human beings. The introduction to my Editorship has been with helpfulness, kindness, supportive care, and carried out with utmost patience; my gratitude is sincere. A distinct feeling of “standing on the shoulders of a giant”; the view is breathlessly committing but at the same time stunning.

Future

In the front matter of this issue, the restructured Board of the Scandinavian Journal of Pain is presented. The number of scientific sections has been expanded from five to nine (Box 2), an increase that likely will strengthen the Journal, attract more manuscripts and improve the enrollment of reviewers.

To facilitate and improve the speed of the editorial process, additional Section Editors and Manuscript Handling Section Editors have been recruited and will successively replace the Associate Editors.

The previously stated declaration from 2018 deserves a recognition [4]: “The Board of the Scandinavian Association for the Study of Pain (SASP), the Editors of SJPAIN, and our dedicated helpers at De Gruyter will continue our efforts to attract high-quality manuscripts reporting on research and educational activities in all aspects of pain research and clinical management of acute and chronic pain.

We will continue to help authors with expert feedback from reviewers and editors and will publish their manuscripts with the highest quality and speed in digital and print versions.

Last but not least, we would like to thank all authors who have submitted their manuscripts to the Scandinavian Journal of Pain. We also thank the editorial board members and other pain researchers who spend much of their valuable time helping authors and editors to improve their manuscripts. Without their help the Scandinavian Journal of Pain would not exist.

The ingoing Editor-in-Chief wishes the readers, De Gruyter, reviewers, editors, and the Board of SASP a prosperous and rewarding time to come, all cheering in unison for new successes for the Scandinavian Journal of Pain.