Editor’s Note

Volume 28 • Number 6 • November/December 2008 • 617Aesthetic Surgery Journal

It gives me extreme pleasure to announce thatAesthetic Surgery Journal has been accepted forindexing in MEDLINE and will be accessible via

PubMed (www.pubmed.gov). Indexing using the USNational Library of Medicine’s (NLM) advanced MeSHterminology will be retroactive, beginning with theJanuary/February 2008 issue of the journal. MeSH is theNLM’s controlled vocabulary thesaurus and permitssearching at various levels of specificity. While pre-2008content will not be indexed using MeSH terms, contentfrom 1995-2007 will be included in PubMed searchresults and will be retrievable for all typical purposes.

As you probably know, MEDLINE is the US NLM’spremier bibliographic database that contains referencesto journal articles in the life sciences with a concentra-tion on biomedicine. The database contains citationsfrom 1950 to the present, with some older material.PubMed includes more than 18 million citations fromMEDLINE and other life science journals. It includeslinks to full text articles and other related resources.

Our acceptance for indexing in MEDLINE/PubMedrepresents the achievement of a long-time goal. Untilnow, ASJ has been indexed in a number of databases,including two of the world’s most comprehensiveindexing and abstracting databases: EMBASE andScopus. However, these databases are available bysubscription only and, therefore, are not widely acces-sible to clinicians and researchers. In contrast,PubMed is freely accessible and is the most widelyused medical database.

Achieving recognition by MEDLINE means that thecontributions of authors submitting their work to ASJwill be viewed and cited more widely than ever before.

Acceptance in MEDLINE also indicates the scientificmerit of the Journal and its contribution to the field ofaesthetic surgery. We anticipate that our indexed statuswill have a very positive impact on manuscript submis-sions and international readership. Most importantly, cli-nicians and researchers around the world will have theopportunity to increase their knowledge and understand-ing of safe and effective aesthetic surgical practices and

techniques, thereby enhancing patient care. We eagerlylook forward to the full and rapid inclusion of ASJ inMEDLINE/PubMed. ◗

ASJ Now Indexed in MEDLINE/PubMed

Stanley A. Klatsky, MD

Stanley A. Klatsky, MD, is Editor in Chief of Aesthetic SurgeryJournal.