ADF Health December 2008 - Volume 9 Number 2EditorialADF Health’s first decadeADF Health, the Journal of the Australian Defence Health Service, was established in December 1998 as an initiative of the then Surgeon General Australian Defence Force, Major General John Pearn AM. Air Commodore (now Air Vice- Marshal) Bruce Short AM was appointed as the inaugural Editor, with the Australasian Medical Publishing Company providing technical production expertise. Brigadier Jeffrey Rosenfeld RAAMC, Captain Mike O’Connor RANR, Group Captain Peter Wilkins and Major Mike Tyquin RAAMC subsequently composed the long-term and successful working editorial panel. The first issue appeared in November 1999, with peer-reviewed copies published each autumn and spring. As the first educationally based bulletin developed by the Defence Health Service, ADF Health continues to fulfil this important and essential scholarship role, thereby enhancing triservice and Joint Health capability. I have the honour and privilege to succeed AVM Bruce Short AM as Chair of the Editorial Board of ADF Health. I wish to thank AVM Short for the tremendous work he has done to establish and nurture the Journal, to promote it widely and to ensure that it has flourished as an important focus for contemporary military health issues. It reaches a wide audience of health professionals but also projects beyond Joint Health into the wider defence community and the civilian sector. We also know that the Journal is of increasing interest to an international audience. AVM Short is now an Editorial Consultant, along with our esteemed colleague MAJGEN John Pearn AM. I wish to thank the recently retired Director General Defence Health Services, AVM Tony Austin AM, for his considerable input into and support of ADF Health, and also RADM Graeme Shirtley RANR, now Surgeon General Defence Health Reserves, for his wise counsel and generous support. We now welcome MAJGEN Paul Alexander, Commander Joint Health Command and Surgeon General ADF, and look forward to working closely with him to continue to produce a Journal of high quality that will be of great interest to its readership. Although military medicine and military health in general cover an extensive breadth of health issues, we are keen to further broaden the spectrum of articles appearing in ADF Health. For this reason, we have increased the range of specialisation of the members of the Editorial Board. LTCOL Kerry Clifford is a senior nurse and health administrator, LCDR Steve Rayner is a senior psychologist, LTCOL Susan Neuhaus is an experienced military and civilian surgeon (and the Editor of this issue), and Professor Dennis Shanks is the Director of the Army Malaria Institute and an expert in tropical medicine. The Editorial Board now encompasses expertise in military history, public health and occupational medicine, internal medicine, tropical medicine, surgery, nursing, psychology, mental health, and obstetrics and gynaecology. We welcome articles in all of these fields, but also articles from allied health practitioners and the few specialties such as pathology, anaesthetics, emergency medicine and intensive care that have not been covered by this grouping. Members of our Editorial Board will be commissioning further articles. We encourage all of our readers to put pen to paper at some time during their military career, and we welcome any feedback readers have about the Journal. The evident successful growth, development and diversification of ADF Health during its first 10 years should ensure it a long-lasting and vibrant future.
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Jeffrey V Rosenfeld