One downside of starting a new journal is the absence of a road map; its beauty can be the same. The Editorial Board and I, with your help, have the fun job-and sizeable responsibility-of delineating the future shape of the journal and establishing what it is that we want JDNA to mean. We are sketching the outlines and deciding how to color them in; getting your feedback helps (write to me at [email protected]). With this issue, you will see the pilot of a new format, with several of the articles focusing on one clinical topic, to be used for occasional issues when content and interest align. Year by year, you will note with satisfaction, I hope, ways in which your comments and contributions have helped shape the journal.
The job of mapmaking brings me to acknowledge, with deep appreciation, the contribution of Dermatology Nursing, the first journal of the Dermatology Nurses' Association (DNA), whose November/December 2010 issue was its last, after 21 years in operation, under the editorship of Marcia Hill. Those who were involved in DNA's first journal invested decades in it; we have a huge amount to learn from them. Only now that I serve as editor of DNA's new official journal can I even begin to appreciate the scale of the work involved in developing and maintaining Dermatology Nursing, its stable of authors and contributors, and its many fine features. It is JDNA's responsibility, now the only U.S. journal dedicated to dermatology nursing, to acknowledge and try to represent the many diverse players in our wonderful specialty and help further their work.
Many thanks to the Oncology Nursing Society (ONS) for allowing us to reprint three chapters-all written by DNA members-of Site-Specific Cancer Series: Skin Cancer (Muehlbauer & McGowan, 2009). "Cutaneous T-Cell Lymphoma: Mycosis Fungoides/Sezary Syndrome," by Susan Booher, Sue Ann McCann, and Marianne Tawa, will be republished in two parts, beginning in this issue. The ONS, a professional organization of 37,000 members, officially incorporated in 1975, publishes books and several extremely impressive journals, including Oncology Nursing Forum and Clinical Journal of Oncology Nursing. Barbara Sigler, ONS publishing director, could not have been more helpful and encouraging in making arrangements with JDNA. Leaders of the DNA and Michele McCorkle, ONS executive director for corporate support and partnerships, have discussed potential future collaboration between the DNA and the ONS on projects of mutual interest. A skin cancer Web course is one such ONS project under development, whose team leader is Krista Rubin, JDNA Editorial Board member and DNA and ONS member. I encourage you to visit the ONS Web site at http://www.ons.org.
The Cutaneous Lymphoma Foundation (http://www.clfoundation.org), another partner, had a role in two articles in the Clinical Focus section. The section ends with Cathleen Case's account of the inaugural Cutaneous Lymphoma Summit, sponsored by the Cutaneous Lymphoma Foundation. The editorial of Drs. Stuart Lessin and Pierluigi Porcu in the Clinical Lymphoma, Myeloma & Leukemia supplement devoted to the summit identifies the DNA, and nursing in general, as key stakeholders in the care of cutaneous lymphoma patients.
In their editorial, a call to action for collaboration across disciplines and specialties, Drs. Lessin and Porcu specifically state that because of the inclusion of members of the Dermatology Nurses' Association (Sue Ann McCann and Marianne Tawa) in the Cutaneous Lymphoma Summit program, the need for "dermatology education in oncology nursing became apparent." They continue, "With the high level of educational programs" sponsored by the DNA, "joint programming with oncology would enrich the care of patients with cutaneous lymphoma" (Lessin & Porcu, 2010).
The importance placed on collaboration between dermatology and oncology nursing is a fitting backdrop for the ONS's contribution to this issue.[black small square]
Barbara B. Starr
Editor-in-Chief
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