engleski

Conflict of interest for editor : sweet and sad choices

On June 4, 2009, I was elected Dean of the University of Split School of Medicine, to take office at October 1, 2009. Since the University of Split School of Medicine is one of the 4 owners of the Croatian Medical Journal (CMJ), I have found myself in an awkward position of becoming the owner of the journal I edit. To resolve this conflict of interest, I will take a leave of absence from the position of the editor during my service as the dean. The following is the story of how I came to make both a sweet and a sad decision after 17 years of my editorial life. The founders - My dream as an academic was to create in Croatia a good journal which would present the medical research in the region. This dream came true with the start of the war in 1991 (1). As I was active researcher in immunology at the time, my initial idea was to help create a journal but, to my surprise, nobody wanted to be its editor. The dean at that time, Prof. Mate Granić, talked me into taking the position and promised to take care of the finances, and I talked him into joining as the co-editor. Prof. Granić soon went into politics to become the vice-president of the Croatian government, did not have time to take care of the journal finances, and stepped down after a year (2). The journal survived in the middle of the war and continued its growth with the support and dedication of many colleagues in the country and abroad (1). The editors - In 1994, upon the wise insisting of the CMJ’s Editorial Board member Prof. Eduard Klain, Prof. Ana Marušić became the co-editor in chief (3) and brought prosperity to the journal in its every aspect. As a volunteer copyeditor, desk-top editor, field worker (1991 was the time of war), peace-worker, anatomist, and co-editor, she took over the international relations of the journal and turned it into a respected international publication. Some called the CMJ “Marušić’s Publishing” to poke fun at the husband and wife working as co-editors (plus my brother Joško Marušić, the artist who made our first cover design and our Christmas cards, ref. 4), forgetting that our work was, and still is, fully volunteer. The owners - The CMJ used an author-helpful policy to build up a critical mass of researchers with skills in responsible research, data presentation, and research communication in Croatia and other emerging and developing countries (5-7). The journal became the door for them to join the global scientific community and the window for the global scienceto see good research from the so called “scientific periphery” (8). The CMJ was started as a volunteer effort of a group of academics, without any framework for its official functioning. Learning from the experiences of editors of large and influential journals who lost their editorial positions defending editorial independence (3), we constructed the legal framework of the journal, naming all 4 medical schools in Croatia as the CMJ’s owners and ensuring the independence of the journal (9). The choice of medical schools for journal owners was logical because the journal’s primary function was, and has remained, that of education and training in the academic and research community (5, 6).

journal; editing

nije evidentirano