JAMA Surgery recently announced this year's impact factor* of 14.77, an increase of 1.145 from last year's score of 13.625. As a point of comparison, this year the Annals of Surgery is ranked second with an impact factor of 12.97.
Melina Kibbe, MD, the Colin G. Thomas, Jr. Distinguished Professor and Chair of Surgery at the UNC School of Medicine (SOM), is the journal's Editor-in-Chief. She has been at the helm of the journal since January 2015 when the impact factor was 4.30. Dr. Kibbe was recently named dean of the UVA School of Medicine and chief health affairs officer for UVA Health. She will start her new position on September 15.
Kibbe is humbled by the news and this latest achievement. She attributes this success to a true team effort that reflects the hard work of the authors, peer reviewers, board members, editorial team, and everyone in The JAMA Network who work hard to get this publication out every month.
"I truly believe that our commitment to publishing the highest level of surgical science has produced these remarkable results," said Kibbe. JAMA Surgery has more than 3.8 million article views and downloads from the website annually, more than 4,500 media mentions in 2020 in outlets such as The Washington Post, the BBC, CNN, NPR, and Reuters, and has published 27 of the top 50 articles by Altmetric score among surgery journals in 2020.
The journal's electronic table of contents (eTOC) is delivered each week to more than 93,000 individuals. We currently have more than 39,600 Twitter and 25,900 Facebook followers. Thus, between the eTOCS, visits to the journal website, social media reach, and print distribution, JAMA Surgery reaches well over 100,000 individuals weekly.
"We are very proud of Dr. Melina Kibbe's leadership of JAMA Surgery, which has elevated the journal to become the highest-ranking surgical journal in the world," said Blossom Damania, PhD, Boshamer Distinguished Professor and Vice Dean for Research.
JAMA Surgery, which began publication in 1920, is an international peer-reviewed journal. JAMA Surgery is the official publication of the Association of VA Surgeons, the Pacific Coast Surgical Association, and the Surgical Outcomes Club and is a member of The JAMA Network family of journals that includes JAMA and 12 specialty journals.
The mission of JAMA Surgery is to promote the art and science of surgery by publishing relevant peer-reviewed research to assist the surgeon in optimizing patient care. JAMA Surgery will also serve as a forum for the discussion of issues pertinent to surgery, such as diversity, equity, and inclusion; the education and training of the surgical workforce; quality improvement; and the ethics and economics of health care delivery.
*Impact factor is an objective measure of the world's leading journals, based on articles' cited references, and is considered a measure of a journal's overall performance and relevance to its field.
