Editor’s corner

1. Changes in the editorial office 

We have had a difficult period of transition at the editorial office in Edison, NJ, as the previous editorial assistant, Ms. Sara Sowers, left to take up another position in New York City after almost three and a half years of dedicated, excellent service towards the continuing growth of the journal. We all wish her success in her new endeavor. I express my sincere apologies for any inconveniences related to this transition period. But I am glad to tell you that we now have a new editorial assistant, Ms. Annabella Drennan, who is now up and running with full speed after a brief period of training.

2. Clinical corners 

We have published several interesting cases in this section guided by the leadership of the section editor, Alon Avidan, MD. Although we have had some responses, we would like to have more responses from you, the readers, to these unusual and often complex cases. If you also wish to submit a case in this section for consideration, please do so and the editorial office will forward the article to Dr. Avidan for a quick decision.

3. New cover of the journal 

In the last editorial board meeting we discussed changing the front cover of the journal after 8 years. Although there was some dissent, the consensus was for a new cover which appeared in the December 2007 issue of the journal. We hope you enjoyed the new appearance of Sleep Medicine. In that issue we printed the image of a tractography which appeared in an article of the same issue. We will intermittently change the images in different issues so that the cover remains visually pleasing and attractive.

4. Sleep, science and serenity 

We invite you to contribute to this section, which includes poems or prose dealing with humanities and reflections on ourselves and our patients. The journal introduced this section to serve as a vehicle for expressing meaning to sleep, dream and life in general which is so important in this chattering world in which we are so easily lost in ourselves.

5. WASM-Elsevier award 

I would like to remind you about two scientific awards (the WASM-Elsevier Christian Guilleminault Sleep Research and Elio Lugaresi Sleep Education awards) for best original research papers published or accepted for publication in Sleep Medicine by young investigators within 5 years of post-training at the time of submission. These two awards will be given at the third WASM Congress in Sao Paulo, Brazil, November 7–11, 2009. The investigators whose papers have been accepted for publication between October 1, 2006 and July 1, 2009 are encouraged to submit a request to this office for consideration for these awards.

6. Editorial board 

We have added four new editorial board members who will bring distinction, stature and diversity to the journal for their outstanding contributions to sleep medicine and sleep science: Pascuale Montagna (Italy), Julia Santin (Chile), Gary Zammit (New York) and Yuping Wang (China).

As the official journal of the World Association of Sleep Medicine (WASM) and the International Pediatric Sleep Association (IPSA) we are ready to serve the mission of these two world organizations dealing with adult and pediatric sleep medicine. The increasing number of submissions from these parts of the world, where sleep medicine is now beginning to take front seats in the world theater of sleep medicine, is gratifying and indicates that WASM and IPSA’s mission of promoting sleep health world wide is succeeding. I close this editorial by encouraging you, the potential contributors and readers, to consider submitting your best science to the journal for publication consideration.