New Year, New Look

For those of you holding this issue of the Oncology Nursing Forum (ONF) in your hands, the change should be tactile. We have changed the paper stock, and I hope you can feel that change. The pages are thicker and matte, and should feel more substantial against your palms. You might have noticed another change when you looked at the cover—we have updated the design and included titles of articles to entice readers to read what we have published.

Many of our readers will not even see these efforts as they search for and download articles online, but we have changed how the content appears, with more prominent titles and more white space. These changes have been made with you, the reader, in mind. We want to make the articles easier to read (and recall) whether you read in hard copy or on your monitor or other devices.

If you have paid attention to past issues of the journal, you may notice that certain aspects of the content have changed too. We are no longer publishing regular departments and, instead, will be publishing a commentary on one of the articles featured in the issue. The departments—and now the commentary—are the responsibility of editorial board members, and we collectively decided at our last meeting that it was time for a change. I am grateful for the past contributions of these hard-working members of the editorial board and look forward to their continued efforts in a different vein.

I have written in the past—many times, it seems, after reviewing my editorials—about change. I like to think about the journal’s new look and content as evolution that reflects progress or growth rather than just a change. As humans, we are constantly evolving (anyone want to revisit a younger and less mature version of yourself?); hopefully, this progress or growth is for the better. I am facing a milestone birthday this year, and I have spent some time reflecting on who I am now and how I would like to see myself in this next decade of my life. Of course, I have also reflected on how I have evolved over the past four decades as an adult. Along with external changes—laugh lines and greying temples (my personal new “cover”)—I think I have seen more “white space” in my perspectives on life. There is less certainty in my attitudes to others and definitely in my sense that the future is going to play out as I would like to see it. I find myself more likely to let things go and to open up to opportunities that, in the past, I might have ignored or shied away from.

Our annual readers’ survey suggests that our readers like what we offer, but those surveyed are Oncology Nursing Society members only. I often wonder about the many others who access articles from our pages through online database searches. They may not have the historic background to know what we used to be and what we are now, but I hope that they too will appreciate the changes that make reading easier on their eyes. A lot of hard work has gone into these changes, and I want to acknowledge the efforts of our senior editorial manager, Leslie McGee, who not only shepherded the process, but also dealt with the many questions I had. Maintaining the high standards and veracity of the journal is a team effort, and readers are not always aware of what goes on behind the scenes. From the feedback we get from authors, the support from reviewers, associate staff editors, and staff editors is appreciated. I hope that the authors in this issue and those going forward will appreciate the changes too.

This freshening of the format of the journal in no way means that we are not dedicated to our mission, which has also undergone a small edit: to disseminate the findings from oncology nursing research and to foster the translation of research evidence to practice. That’s it in a nutshell, even though the shell may look a little different. Evolution, progress, change—whatever we call it­—it is inevitable, and nothing remains the same. In our lives and work, there is constant flux, some of it good and some of it met with concern or outright resistance. The Earth keeps spinning, and the seasons change, as do we. This is not the first change for ONF (it used to be a newsletter decades ago, and look what it is now), and it will certainly not be the last. And, of course, we expect you to tell us what you think about it.

About the Author(s)

Anne Katz, PhD, RN, FAAN, is a clinical nurse specialist at the Manitoba Prostate Centre and a sexuality counselor for the Department of Psychosocial Oncology at CancerCare Manitoba, both in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Katz can be reached at ONFEditor@ons.org.