From Reader to Editor: A Journey with Colombia Medica

Abstract

I learned about the existence of Colombia Médica journal in a classroom during my clinical pathology rotations at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in 1989. It was a printed journal, well-designed, with articles that revealed another Colombia, one often unfamiliar in the capital, Bogotá. Reading it allowed me to answer a question a colleague posed to a gynecology professor, one he could not answer: Why were all the cancer studies from Cali? By then, thanks to articles in the journal, I already knew that Cali had a population-based cancer registry.

My subscription ended when the journal announced its transition to an electronic format driven by internet innovation. I lost contact with it because, at the time, I was a physician responding to a dengue outbreak in a town in Tolima, where there was not even a telephone.

Years later, after joining Universidad del Valle and completing my master’s degree in pharmacology, I was assigned to review a manuscript. Lacking experience, I went directly to the Colombia Médica office to ask for guidance. There, I met the team led by Dr. Guillermo Llanos, who did not hesitate to laugh at my concerns but also showed me a series of articles titled "The Joy of Publishing," which guided that first review I conducted. (1) Other similar assignments followed, in which I was able to contribute modestly to improving manuscripts that were eventually published.

After publishing several papers and submitting a letter to the editor, Dr. Llanos invited me to write an editorial. That challenge opened the doors to the editorial world and led me to explore publication ethics and the role of scientific journals in validating knowledge. I joined the Editorial Committee during a period of global transition in scientific publishing, as bibliometric indicators and citation databases gained prominence. At the same time, foundational values of scientific communication were taking shape: transparency, replicability, and reproducibility. Electronic publishing profoundly influenced the way science was written, communicated, and cited.