Colleagues — it is with great pleasure that I present Volume 11 Issue 1 of the Australasian Emergency Nursing Journal as Editor-in-Chief. This issue, our first for 2008, is bound with a variety of contributions reflecting the diversity that exists within our profession. It opens with a guest editorial from College of Emergency Nursing Australasia (CENA) Executive Director, Julie Finucane OAM, who provides a year-in-review for the College. Adjoining this is a range of excellent contemporary contributions on a variety of topics covering clinical practice, research, professional practice, education and training, and scholarship, along with book reviews of recent titles of interest. I commend this issue and the efforts of our contributing authors, peer reviewers, editorial team, and editorial board to you.

In early November 2007, I took up the role of Editor-in-Chief of the AENJ from the outgoing Interim Editor-in-Chief, Toni McCallum Pardey. I would like to take this moment on behalf on the AENJ Editorial Board to join CENA Executive Director, Julie Finucane OAM,1 in acknowledging the great contribution Toni has made to the AENJ during her time as Interim Editor-in-Chief. Although I have only known Toni for a short time, I have seen first hand her strong passion and commitment to CENA, the AENJ and the emergency nursing profession. Thank you for all your hard work, Toni. We wish you the very best in your future endeavours.

Demonstrating passion and commitment to our profession and the practice of emergency nursing is something that is characteristic of CENA and its members. One clear demonstration of this passion and commitment that I witnessed personally was the International Conference for Emergency Nursing (ICEN) 2007. ICEN 2007 was my very first CENA conference, and what a success it was. Over the years, I have attended many, many conferences. I can say without fear or favour that ICEN 2007 was by far one of the best. There is one distinct measure I base this accolade on—camaraderie. For me, the conference felt like a gathering of old and dear friends. I caught up with many faces and friends from places and times past, and over the four days I met and made many more. Delegates came in droves to see each other, meet new people and make new friends. We celebrated ourselves as a profession, who proudly strive each and every day to make the lives of others better. Each and every session was well-attended by the delegates, even those scheduled first up each morning. As I sat in the audience, I looked around and observed. Delegates listened to speakers. They really listened. They were attentive, engaged and interested, soaking up the offerings and learnings their colleagues and the speakers provided. I remember thinking at the time what a marvellous achievement is was to have a community of colleagues so supportive and engaged in their profession. I remember thinking how fortunate I was, and indeed we are, to have such a community to make the future of CENA and of emergency nursing. That experience brought home to me as Editor-in-Chief the great privilege I have to be working with such an outstanding community of colleagues. It is this camaraderie and collegiality that I seek to draw on and contribute to in leading the AENJ into the future.

I recently chaired the inaugural meeting of the AENJ Editorial Management Team. Present at this meeting were Associate Editors Belinda Donkin-Evers and Marie Gerdtz, CENA Executive Director, Julie Finucane OAM, Elsevier Publishing Editor Fiona Barron, and Elsevier Development Editor Jaci Wainwright. As a team, we had much to discuss; it was in many ways the first meeting of the minds of the future for the AENJ. It was a most fruitful enterprise. I shared with the team my broad vision for the AENJ from which we collectively brokered a new strategic direction for the future of the AENJ. During that day, I learned many things about the AENJ and my editorial colleagues. Perhaps the most significant was the tremendous level of goodwill and commitment each of the team demonstrated to the ongoing success of the AENJ. Our vision statement is a work-in-progress, but I thought I’d take this opportunity to share some of my thoughts and those of my team that emerged from our meeting.

The AENJ is the official journal of the College of Emergency Nursing Australasia. Its aim is to serve the needs of the contemporary emergency nurse and other constituencies and stakeholders in raising the profile of emergency nursing. When we examine this aim a little more closely, we get to the heart of our specific goals and aspirations.

As I and my colleagues see it, the AENJ is really about you – the emergency nurse. It should be a tool you and other emergency nurses and allied health care professionals look to for discussion and debate about your contemporary practice. It should provide high-quality and contemporary information directly relevant to your care of the sick and injured, and reflect the diversity of emergency nursing. Renowned for its clear relevance to evidence-based clinical practice and contemporary research and scholarship, we want the AENJ to be an open forum for timely discussion and debate of the challenges of contemporary emergency nursing and care. Our vision for the AENJ is for it to be a conduit and repository for clinical, applied, and theoretical research in emergency nursing that is original and innovative. AENJ publications will be afforded critical acclaim nationally and internationally, to clinicians, researchers and the wider health profession. The AENJ will be renowned for excellence in peer review and publication. Emergency nurses and our allied emergency care personnel across the country and around the world will want to contribute to AENJ, and will be provided with the means to do so in a variety of endeavours. Reviews will be of the highest quality, timely, constructive, and encouraging of authors and their contributions through the work of an editorial board and panel of reviewers of international distinction. The AENJ Editorial Board will serve to protect and strengthen the integrity and quality of the journal, its processes, and contribution of the AENJ to emergency nursing. The AENJ and CENA will formally recognise the invaluable contribution authors, editors and reviewers collectively make to emergency nursing—a recognition of significance among peers. This will in turn build and extend the profile of the AENJ, and improve visibility and presence of CENA and our contribution to emergency nursing. The AENJ will broker new communities of practice in emergency nursing and health care by building on our partnerships and networks with kindred national and international organisations such as the Australian College of Critical Care Nurses and the Emergency Nurses Association, USA. The AENJ will contribute to the global success of our publishing partner Elsevier, and continue to value-add to their impressive stable of publications, thereby ensuring commercial viability and success in commercial publishing. It will be an exemplar of publishing excellence for formative journals in the international publishing arena. Markers of success will include: increased subscription rates; increases in the number and quality of manuscript submitted, accepted and published; positive readership and user satisfaction surveys; and progressive favourable rankings in the national and international arena. Mostly importantly, our greater measure of success is the extent to which the AENJ serves your needs, and provides you with a platform for discussion and debate. To me, and to my team, there can be no greater priority than to ensure the AENJ serves the needs of CENA members and the emergency nursing profession. This vision will afford the AENJ a clear presence and identity, defined by our excellence in publishing, research and scholarship in emergency nursing. It will define us as Australasia's premier emergency nursing journal.

To some, this might seem like a bold vision. It may be bold, but it is measured. It is what is expected of the AENJ as a formative journal within the wider publishing arena, and most importantly it is what we think you, our readership and our members, expect from the AENJ.

We had at our inaugural editorial meeting in Sydney much to discuss. In turn, we the AENJ and CENA now also have much to discuss. In the coming months, you will hear more about the future of the AENJ and will be afforded many opportunities to provide comment on the future direction of the AENJ. I seek your advice and counsel about what it is your want from your journal. From this we will broker a new strategic vision for the AENJ and an AENJ Strategic Plan, which will serve as the blueprint for the achievement of our goals and aspirations. Our aim is to publish the most respected journal in emergency nursing in Australasia. Our aim is for the AENJ to promote CENA and the voice of emergency nursing, which in turn will enhance our contribution to and presence within the nursing profession. Our aim is for the AENJ to be recognised nationally and internationally as the premier Australasian journal of emergency nursing.

The AENJ is in a privileged position. We enjoy this position thanks to the many that came before us. In particular we owe our thanks to our publishing partner Elsevier, a global leader in publishing, for providing us with the tools and a platform from which we may prosper. The AENJ has a long way to go, for the many that come after us. We will have many great successes. At times, we will make some mistakes. These are inevitable, and are symptomatic of all learning organisations as they grow and prosper. As Professor Kenneth Hammond2 has long argued, and as many of you would know from your own experiences, when it comes to any human enterprise and the human condition there is always the risk of ‘irreducible uncertainty, inevitable error, and unavoidable injustice’. But the future remains ever bright. Developing and implementing a new strategic plan will position the AENJ to the meet the needs and challenges of our profession. It will provide us with direction to guide our efforts to provide a cutting edge and engaging journal which platforms discussion and debate in emergency nursing.

Importantly, achieving these goals requires more than the effort of one or even a few. The success of the AENJ is not in the main about me as Editor-in-Chief or my Associate Editors. It is about us all—emergency nurses—and about how we all collectively play a part in the ongoing success of the AENJ, and the role it plays in our everyday practice of emergency nursing. The AENJ looks to you to contribute to its success with the same camaraderie and collegiality evident at the ICEN 2007 that is so characteristic of CENA and its members. Please email me with your ideas, comments and suggestions. It is only from this endeavour and your contribution that the AENJ—your journal—will gain accolade as Australasia's premier emergency nursing journal, and secure our profession, our College, and our practice as emergency nurses for the future.

I look forward to working with you all in the future.