Welcome to Casablanca

“Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

(Casablanca, 1942)

There are classics, and there are classics. Casablanca certainly is an eternal one, and that famous last line is probably one of the most popular Hollywood quotes ever – and a perfect motto for our latest effort. As a pediatric cardiac surgeon by training and by heart it gives me immense joy and pride that the German Society for Pediatric Cardiology and Congenital Heart Defects (DGPK) has decided to choose The Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgeon as its scientific society journal. The title, of course, may be a bit awkward and even deterring for pediatric cardiologists, but there will be a special separate section called “Pediatric Cardiology” to guarantee them their own identity.

Under the wise guidance by visionary Daniel Schiff and imperturbable Graham Brumfield from Thieme Publishers an ingenious publishing model was developed which will serve everybody's needs and give the newcomers a cordial welcome. Manuscripts dealing with pediatric cardiology issues will be assigned a “.PCC” suffix in the manuscript submission system. After the routine formal checks by the Editorial Office and the Editor-in-Chief they will then enter a separate peer review path, entirely organized and executed by the DGPK. For this, the Editorial Board of the journal has been extended accordingly with current president Sven Dittrich (Erlangen) serving as the editor and Regina Boekenkamp (Leiden, NL), Katharina Schmitt (Berlin), Oktay Tutarel (Munich), and Anselm Uebing (Kiel) as further society representatives for the time being. They will assign and invite peer reviewers to their liking, thereby also extending our overall specialist pool. After an eventual accept or reject decision this will be passed along to the Editor-in-Chief for final approval as he remains the one responsible for the overall content of the whole journal. Accepted articles will then be published in a separate Open Access section Pediatric Cardiology after payment of a fairly priced Article Processing Charge (APC) offering discounts for society members.

For all of us, the publisher included, this journal-within-the-journal is new territory and we are all curious about the further developments. It can be regarded as a good sign that the first manuscripts have already started to come in at a time when this novelty had barely been announced to the pediatric cardiology community.

With pediatric cardiologists and cardiac surgeons being the historical and long established role model for the much enthused about “heart team” it can be anticipated that this new joint venture is on the road to success. Like in Casablanca it is always reassuring to be able to rely on “the usual suspects.”