The Birth of the Western Journal of Emergency Medicine: WestJEM

while taking advantage of the Academic Task Force participation from 10 other Western training programs. Furthermore, we felt that the name would speak to academic EM programs from the Western Hemisphere, and to those in the Eastern Hemisphere who wanted to publish to a Western audience. Given the international growth of research in the specialty, particularly in Asia, we felt this name served several purposes. We will see if this works. Regarding governance of the journal, the sponsorship remains equally with CAL/AAEM and the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of California, Irvine. The journal is not owned by a multinational publishing company, as are the other four American EM journals. Hence it is " open access " and therefore free on line. With WestJEM, you will never BLOCKINbe BLOCKINteased BLOCKINby BLOCKINan BLOCKINinteresting BLOCKINabstract, BLOCKINonly BLOCKINto BLOCKINfind BLOCKINthat BLOCKINthe publisher requires you to pay for the full text of the paper. The mission of WestJEM: Emphasize the practical over theoretical, focusing on the roles of technology and public health BLOCKINin BLOCKINefficient BLOCKINand BLOCKINoptimal BLOCKINemergency BLOCKINcare. BLOCKINWe BLOCKINstrive BLOCKINto be a journal for practicing emergency physicians, with a 21st century BLOCKINfocus BLOCKINon BLOCKINtechnology, BLOCKINpractice BLOCKINefficiency BLOCKINand BLOCKINthe BLOCKINgrow-ing role of the specialty in promoting public health. Drawing on our independent roots, the Vision of WestJEM is to be the premier open-access journal for emergency medicine in the Western Hemisphere. With WestJEM, the on-line version will always be free. One might ask, do we need a new journal? The answer in my mind is emphatically, " Yes! " A few comparisons are in order. There are approximately 25-30,000 emergency physicians in the USA with four mainstream EM journals indexed in the PubMed database. By contrast, with approximately the same number of U.S. specialists, the number of indexed journals in cardiology (23), ophthalmology (20), pathology (18), radiology (11) and orthopedics (10) far exceeds that of EM. 2 Next recognize that the last general EM journal in the U.S. Welcome BLOCKINto BLOCKINthe BLOCKINfirst BLOCKINissue BLOCKINof BLOCKINthe BLOCKINWestern Journal of Emergency Medicine, or WestJEM. This issue is the culmination of an ambitious plan to expand the scope, size, frequency and quality of the former Cali-fornia Journal of Emergency Medicine (CalJEM). CalJEM started publishing in 2000 as a joint venture of the University of California Departments/Divisions of Emergency Medicine (principally the Davis and Irvine campuses) and the California Chapter of the American Academy of Emergency …