New members bring extra know-howto DI Asia Pacific's Editorial Board

Most readers probably pay little attention to the listing of the Editorial Advisory Board in the bottom right corner of this page, but these people play an important role in our magazine. DI Asia Pacific is not a peerreviewed journal, so our advisors do not carry out formal reviews of manuscripts, but board members suggest worthwhile topics for future coverage, nominate potential authors, answer technical queries, and give other advice to the editors. Some of them also write articles for us on a regular basis.

Since the first edition of DI Asia Pacific was distributed in April 1994, following the 18th International Congress of Radiology held in Singapore that January, the number of advisors has grown steadily. We now have 20 board members from 12 different nations, and they have expertise in a diverse range of subjects. Given the complexity of imaging today, as well as the need to ensure that there is a good geographical spread among the editorial panel, having such a network of contacts is invaluable. If the editors have any queries, then we always know someone who can help us.

These board members are very generous with their time, particularly bearing in mind that the position is unpaid and entirely voluntary. From time to time, some of them say that their main motivation is to contribute to a publication that is free to medical doctors and performs a useful service.

As you will see from the news story in this edition, we have four new members of the board. They have expertise in several key areas, including cardiovascular imaging, chest radiology, computer-aided diagnosis, and neuro and musculoskeletal imaging, and they are based in four powerful countries within the region: Australia, China, India, and Japan. I am sure that their contributions and active participation will help to strengthen DI Asia Pacific. We are looking forward to working with them over the coming months and years.

In addition, we have redesigned DI Asia Pacific in an attempt to make it more readable, compact, and useful for readers. Our group creative director, Nancy Bitteker, has done an excellent job on this redesign.

I am delighted to report that we will be producing four new-format issues during 2009. To ensure that you receive future editions, please take a moment to complete an electronic subscription on our website. This will help to guarantee that your contact information is up to date for our circulation database.

Finally, if you have not done so already, please take a few moments to look at our online news service from the European Congress of Radiology, held in Vienna in March. Since it moved to the Austrian capital in 1991 and became an annual meeting in 2000, ECR has emerged as a highly respected and well-attended international scientific event with a large technical exhibition. Australia and New Zealand were two host countries at this year's conference.

You can catch up with ECR 2009 by logging on to DiagnosticImaging.com and clicking on conference reports, where you will find our seventh annual ECR webcast. I hope you enjoy it. If you have any observations or comments, please send them to me by e-mail at philipward1@btconnect.com