At the fifteenth World Congress of Physical Therapy (WCPT) held in Vancouver, British Columbia in June of 2007, the Journal of Neurologic Physical Therapy (JNPT) editors actively participated in several publication related events. These included the formation of a society of journal editors, a writing workshop and rating of poster and platform presentations.

At the inaugural meeting of the International Society of Physical Therapy Journal Editors (ISPJE), Drs. Boyd, Deutsch and Field-Fote represented JNPT where editors from over forty journals connected to dozens of countries participated. Our colleagues from the journal of Manual Therapy beautifully summarized the purpose of the organization. "The ISPJE aims to promote the sharing of knowledge, expertise and good practice among international physiotherapy editors and raise the standards within and the academic profile of physiotherapy publication across the world. It is also hoped that by working together, we can facilitate more access to publications for those people living in developing countries."1JNPT editors were honored to participate in the discussion and look forward to making a contribution to the profession of physical therapy.

The journal editors from approximately a dozen journals organized a writing workshop. Formal presentations and a panel discussion were followed by small group conversations about writing for publication. Drs. Boyd and Deutsch participated as small group facilitators. At my round table, individuals from South Africa, the Netherlands, Sweden and Israel spoke about their publication interests and challenges. Many physical therapy journals, such as the Israeli PT journal, are published for consumption in their country of origin in their native language. Others, such as the Australian Physiotherapy Journal and JNPT have an international audience.

JNPT was also asked to participate in the judging of posters and platforms to be recognized for awards. As the journal Editor, I assumed that responsibility and found myself listening to presentations I would not have ordinarily selected. This was indeed a delightful experience and it made me realize that the tendency to specialize can be limiting. Two of the presentations I attended were particularly interesting. The first was in a session on education. What I found remarkable was the effort invested in developing physical therapist education programs in parts of world, such as Vietnam, where there was no history of the profession. The second talk was on the psychometrics, specifically specificity and sensitivity of testing for shoulder impingement. Our colleagues in the musculoskeletal world are ahead of us when it comes to diagnostic testing.

I was a participant in the previous WCPT in Barcelona where I presented some of my own work. At that time, I attended a meeting for journal editors. It was exciting to see how far the editors had come in the four years between Barcelona and Vancouver and especially gratifying that JNPT had such a strong presence and could make a modest contribution. We look forward to building on these efforts in 2011 when the meeting will be held in Holland.

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