How long have you been on the board?

About 5 years - though not sure!?!

I first got involved with reviewing and then became increasingly interested in the journal. Then one day, smoke emerged from the BJJ office chimney indicating my appointment onto the editorial board.

The board really gave me an insight into the working of the journal. The journal is a real machine with many staff needed to produce the high-quality output each month. Furthermore, it enabled me to really appreciate what we have. The BJJ is an independent publisher - i.e. we’re not tied to other big publishers. This creates huge opportunities in how we run, giving us complete freedom to innovate and support surgeons around the globe. However, this also means that we have to do all of the journal functions ourselves (i.e. marketing, web building etc etc). This means that I’ve become even more committed to supporting what we have - as the BJJ is pretty unique - so we need to love it!

The best thing about the board is the time in London - meeting other members of the board and the journal staff. It is fun that makes the world go around!

I can’t emphasise enough how important it is to support what we have. Increasingly, we look to specialty journals to publish things - though we should regard the BJJ as the pinnacle of our publications. If there is something high-quality enough and general enough for a broad audience, then we should be definitely be thinking BJJ. 

If you want to become involved - do it! You are never too junior to become involved. This may initially be through making animations, helping develop infographics, helping the social media strategy and will develop to becoming a board member - and who knows, perhaps you will be the next Editor.