It was the end of the 1970s at the Medical Academy in Kraków. Textbooks, often few or even many years old, were our main source of knowledge. We learned internal medicine from (Edward) Szczeklik’s Internal Medicine, which was printed every few years and passed on from year to year to a new cohort of students. Medical journals were just an abstract for us. However, we had heard about the publications of Polish scientists from our Academy, for example, Professors Ryszard Gryglewski and Andrzej Szczeklik. It was probably our first encounter with current scientific research publications and, remarkably, in renowned, foreign journals.

One of the creators of the concept of evidence based medicine and, at the same time, one of my first clinical teachers outside Poland, Dr. David Sackett, an outstanding clinician and scientist from McMaster University from Hamilton, Canada, asked me after a few weeks of working together which medical journals I read. The question was a surprise to me—as an intern, I had not read any. The main source of my knowledge was the Merck Manual, updated every few years. Dr. Sackett also surprised me by asking about Professor Szczeklik, whose publications he had read in BMJ.

Polish Archives of Internal Medicine (Pol Arch Intern Med) was established 100 years ago. The last dozen or so years, especially under the direction of the editor-in-chief, Professor Anetta Undas, have witnessed its metamorphosis and growth. It has become an attractive journal for authors from all over the world, publishing widely recognizable original research papers and providing the readers with an overview of current topics of interest to clinicians. As a co-chair of the Pol Arch Intern Med Editorial Board, I feel proud to invite the world’s leading experts to write review papers for the journal. In my opinion, Pol Arch Intern Med has come to be an international showcase of Polish internal medicine and Polish medical science.

How to measure the role and importance of medical journals? The easiest way is to use the so-called impact factor (IF), that is, the average frequency of citations of papers from a given journal in the world research literature. Under the direction of the editorial team of Professors Anetta Undas, Grzegorz Gajos, Tomasz Stompór, and Dr. Agnieszka Pac, the IF of Pol Arch Intern Med has been growing and is definitely noticeable internationally. However, it seems more important to me that Pol Arch Intern Med has achieved a status thanks to which generations of Polish clinicians and researchers can proudly expect publication of their work in “their journal,” which is not inferior to the majority of other English-language sources. Looking back, the work done by the editors and publishers of Pol Arch Intern Med opened an additional (and considerable) window to the world for Polish scientists.

I would like to highlight that the quality of the journal depends not only on its scientific content but also on its presentation, including linguistic and technical aspects of publication. Here, special thanks are due to the editorial office team led by the managing editor Ms. Katarzyna Toffel: Ms. Gabriela Lipień, Dr. Małgorzata Kopyra, Dr. Zbigniew Heleniak, and Mr. Tomasz Śmigla, for ensuring the highest level of editorial services.

When writing about the work of the publisher, I would also like to acknowledge the contribution of Medycyna Praktyczna, which additionally publishes the monthly Medycyna Praktyczna. The publication of Pol Arch Intern Med, a journal whose scope is mainly scientific and research-oriented but also didactic, and Medycyna Praktyczna, a strictly educational magazine, created sources of knowledge of new and elevated quality in comparison with what was available in the past to the generations of Polish students and doctors at various stages of medical career. The achievements of these editorial teams are worth emphasizing, and I would like to thank the editorial leadership and staff of Pol Arch Intern Med for the opportunity to participate, albeit to a modest extent, in this process.

The Polish–Canadian cooperation, which is of particular interest to me, has another aspect—for years McMaster University and the Jagiellonian University, together with Pol Arch Intern Med, the Polish Society of Internal Medicine, and Medycyna Praktyczna, have been organizing an international educational conference in Kraków, under the name of McMaster International Review Course in Internal Medicine. Since 2015, participants from over 70 countries meet at this annual conference to to discuss the latest breakthroughs, present landmark medical achievements, and follow discussions between key opinion leaders. For me, it is also an opportunity to celebrate the achievements of Polish and Canadian internal medicine. Pol Arch Intern Med is an integral participant of this event, as it publishes the best case reports submitted by the young conference attendees.1-5

I sincerely congratulate the Pol Arch Intern Med team on their achievements, wish them perseverance in their crucially important editorial work, and hope for their many future successes.