Agreement towards Excellence

Colombia Médica was recently classified by COLCIENCIAS in A1 category as a fair recognition by its long undertaking of scientific publication during four decades, achieving articles to be consulted and informed in twenty two international data bases, including Institute for Scientific Information (ISI-Thomson), and having an impact factor (SCIMAGO). All of this is by being devoted to an outstanding quality: excellence.

In the beginning Colombia Médica was printed out on paper with one thousand copies quarterly for national distribution and extended exchange requested by libraries from prestigious universities over the world. Web publication of the journal was a decisive step to increase its diffusion at a long scale. International data bases information of reading people show that a very important part of consultation (60%) is done over the five continent´s countries surpassing the mean of one thousand consults per day.

A journal importance may be measured by its level of contribution to new knowledge, academic debate of highly controversial topics having as central axle scientific contribution frontiers and state of the art, which is reflected by the degree of article quotation in highest level publications. Investigators from twenty countries of three continents have communicated their research contributions in Colombia Médica; this demonstrates and proves the journal visibility both for regular readers and for the international scientific community.

La Universidad del Valle is a superior education institution distinguished by national government due to its excellence patterns and classified by SCIMAGO as the Colombian public university of high standing scientific visibility. Institutional support to research, in all dimensions, has made possible to Colombia Médica the development of internal regulations that obey to university structure, maintaining at the same time an editorial independence which preserves its high standards.
Colombia Médica works to implement an automated system (web manager) limbering important mechanisms like articles submission, evaluation process and management of editorial decisions, in order to increase in authors the proportion of an universal language use for scientific communication. In this number sixteen articles have been received from four countries and two continents, more than half of them written in English, which demonstrates an advance achieving the proposed objectives.

Finally I would like to refer to a public health problem that continues with no solution in Colombia. It has been treated by some authors of various articles in this number. According to United Nations Population Fund maternal mortality is the millennium developing goal that is less achieved in the country. The National Health Institute of the United States of America (NHI) has made a call to diminish research breach between disciplines as the only way to find some day preeclampsia’s etiology and prevention, which is the first cause of maternal death in Colombia. Regardless of known causes, there is a consensus about the multifactorial origin of the illness; and so, preventive actions should be taken in that direction, as it is presented by the review article.

Increase coverage of prenatal control, number of prenatal controls, and increase institutional attention at delivery, is not concordant with high mortality rates observed in many countries in the region, that also present issues with attention quality and a high degree of unaccomplished standards and protocols. This situation deserves a very deep reflexion. Government, academy, and society have a great social responsibility to modify this serious problem that affects in a very sensitive way life quality specially that of the most vulnerable population.

Julián A. Herrera M., MD
Editor in Chief
Emeritus Head Professor
Department of Family Medicine
Faculty of Health, Universidad del Valle, Cali