We embark on a new year, it is important to reflect on the progress we have made and the challenges that lie ahead. In this editorial, We aim to go over the impact factor (IF) and new policies before shedding light on the journal statistics.

After more than 3 years, the World Health Organization has declared an end to the COVID-19 as a global health emergency.1 It seemed like yesterday when COVID-19 has changed our lives and we suddenly adapt to the new normal.

Never before have research and healthcare systems gained the importance and priority they have now. One of our main roles is addressing global health issues. Over the years we have published COVID-19 related articles and this year the submissions on COVID-19 articles were not as ruling as with the previous years. It comprised 10% of our publication. The challenges that we face with these articles is the reproducibility. We do encourage novel contributions from other parts of the globe. The other challenge is the substantial amount of low-scientific relevance submissions; in addition to inadequate reviews or a lack of enthusiasm on the part of reviewers to offer an in-depth review, the editor has the last say in matters of opinion.

This year it also has come to our attention that some predatory site/journal is using our name and logo for publishing purposes. We would like to warn our readers and authors to use only the official links and website for the submissions. We are not connected with these agencies and do not take part in any of thier activities, and transactions that they do using our name.

We are working on expanding the use of the social media for dissemination of scientific information, we always advise the author to contribute in this process.

Halfway through this year the Journal’s latest IF was released, it rose to 1.6 which is higher than the previous year’s (1.422) although IF importance may diminish over time as new metrics are developed, but still IF remains an important metric for evaluating journals. Despite everything that we have encountered this year, we consider this to be great news. It is encouraging that we are adhering to our goal of releasing high-impact and quality articles. Moving forward, we believe this task will be more achievable with the addition of our 2 new associate editors who will assist and review various prior-to-print editing processes. We are delighted to welcome on board Dr. Saad Albtal from the Department of Family Medicine, Prince Sultan Military Medical City, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Dr. Haifa from the Scientific Research Center, Ministry of Health Defense Health Services, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Surely they will be a great addition to our team.

Once again we would like to bring light to some Journal’s policies for the benefit of our readers most especially our authors. We have announced last year, that the journal does not consider papers that were previously submitted to preprint repositories, although this is a requirment by many journals, we at Saudi Medical Journal find it confusing, inconvenient, and time consuming when screening for unethical previously published (duplicated) articles.

Another thing is the withdrawal process for downgraded articles, downgraded articles are articles that were first submitted as Original article and after the peer-review process and evaluation it was decided to be revised as Brief Communication. We would like to affirm that this decision is final. Authors who refuse to revise and publish it as Brief Communication should follow the policy. We are committed to adhere to the withdrawal policy that is stated in the instruction to author. Only when it is reviewed and approved by the Editor, can the author officially withdraw the paper from the Journal and can be submitted elsewhere.

This year we received 665 manuscripts from which we processed 354 articles that have complied with the Journal’s requirements (Figure 1). Over the past 12 issues, we have published 3 Editorials, 7 Systematic Reviews, 17 Reviews, and 119 Originals, with a total of 1298 pages. Approximately 74.5% of the papers we published were from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (Table 1). Our total rejection rate was 76% of which 47% were rejected at the initial decision. Initial screening plays a very important step as it determines the articles that will advance in the editorial processes. Submissions declined from this step are not sent to external reviewers and reviewed by the Board, hence, no other comments and remarks are sent to the authors. Most likely to be rejected at this stage are articles that are too old, more than 5 years, too specialized, not within our scope, adds nothing new to existing literature, and previously submitted to preprint servers.

- Type of manuscripts received for the year 2023.

- Origin of “peer-reviewed” articles published in the Saudi Medical Journal for the year 2023.

- Average processing time frame of articles published in the Saudi Medical Journal for the year 2023.

The average processing time frame of original articles in year 2023 from received date to acceptance was 2.6 months, from acceptance to publication 1.3 months, and from received to publication 3.9 months.

We will have a whole new year ahead and we would like to thank our readers, authors, reviewers, and the Editorial team for their continued support over the years.

Our thanks goes to the reviewers who have participated in the excellent review of manuscripts and books for the year 2023.

A. Seval Ozgu-Erdinc

A.A. Gde Putra Semara Jaya

Abdul Meshikhes

Abdulaziz Mansoor Al Raimi

Abdulbari Bener

Abdulghani Alsaeed*

Abdulla Darwish

Abdullah Abdulkareem

Abdullah Abudayah

Abdullah Alarfaj

Abdullah Alkattan

Abdullah Alkhenizan

Abdullah Awadh

Abdulmoein AlAgha

Abdulmohsen Al-Elq*

Abdulmohsen Al-Zalabani

Abdulrahman Alashkar

Abeer Ali

A. S. Chandrakumari

Abuobaida Abukhelaif*

Adnan Mubaraki

Ahlam El Shikieri

Ahmad Alsaeed

Ahmed Abdel Moneim

Ahmed Absi

Ahmed Al Fagih

Ahmed Al-Ameer

Ahmed Alamri

Ahmed Kadhum

Ahmed Kemalettin Koltka

Ahmed Morad Asaad

Ahmet Aslan

Ahmet Caglayan

Ahmet Kokurcan

Aladdin J. Mohammad

Alberto Modenese

Aleksa Jovanovic

Alexander E. Berezin

Alexandr V. Belousov

Alexandra Senegaglia

Ali A. Alshatwi

Ali Alasmari

Ali Aldhebaib

Ali Alhilly

Ali Alshabi

Ali Alyami

Ali Ismail Ali Abdelreahim

Ali Jawad*

Alian A. Alrasheedy

Altug Tuncel

AM Al-Hinnawi

Amal Ismail

Amari Alhozali

Amjad Alharbi

Amr Arafat

Amro Hanora

Amy Gladin

Anan S. Jarab

Andreas Jahnen

Andreas Tiede

Angham Al Mutair

Anil Kumar Sah

Anirudha Agnihotry

Anna Baran

Anna Horwood

A. M. Badowska-Kozakiewicz

Annang Giri Moelyo

Anne Cusick

Anshoo Malhotra

Anusha Yanamadala

Aqeel Alaqeel

Areej Alkhaldy

Arghya Das

Arife Akay

Arli Aditya Parikesit

Armen Yuri Gasparyan

Ashwin Subramaniam

Asmaa Abdel Nasser

Atousa Deljou

Attia Bari

Aveek Jayant

Aws Al-Numan

Ayman Al-hazmi

Ayse Akbas

Badr Aljarallah

Bahar Dernek

Balaji Zacharia

Bander Alanazi

Bang-Gee Hsu

Banu Ordahan

Bareng A.S. Nonyane

Basile N. Landis

Basman Al-Metwali

Bedoor Alomran

Bekir Kocazeybek

Benoit Bedat

Biswanath Basu

Carlos Sanchez-Garcia

Carlton Dampier

Cathy L. Lazarus

Cemil Kayali

Chao Li

Charles Doarn

Cheorl-Ho Kim

Christopher J. Nolan

Christos Kosmas

Chuan Shao

Cristina Gluhovschi

Cynthia L. Arfken

D. Kafadar

Dan Dupont Hougaard

Daniel Reim

Dara Al-Banna

Dayel Alshahrani

Deependra K. Rai

Derya Karasu

Desh Deepak

D. Kostova-Lefterova

Dhia Kadhem

Dian Handayani

Dina Alsohaibi

Dingshen Lin

Dongsheng Sun

Dragos Ioan Tohanean

E. Zangiacomi Martinez

Eiman M. AbdulRahman

Eitaro Kodani

Eman Abdelrazek

Eman Abduljawad

Eman Dyab

Eman E. Elsharkawy

Enas Abdelaziz

Endale Tefera

Erna Rochmawati

Fadime Kilinc

Fahad Al Juraibah

Fahad Almutairi

F. Mohammadghasemi

Fairoz Ali Al-Wrafy

Faizan Zaffar Kashoo*

Farah Dayana Zahedi

Fares Haddad

Farid Alzhrani

Farrukh Majeed

Faruk Buba

Fatimah Al Aldahan

Fawaz Al-Kassim

Feras Alkholaiwi

Ferdinando Antonio Gulino

Filiz Ozsoy

Firas S. Azzeh

Foad Abdallah

Fouad Almomani

Francesco Ria

Frederic Triponez

Gaurav Goyal

Gennaro Martines

Ghada Elgohary

Ghassan Alokby

Giancarlo Micheletto

Gina Joubert

Giovanni Conti

Girmay Fitiwi Lema

Gokhan Ozkan

Grigoris T. Gerotziafas

Gulali Aktas

Gulfem Ece

Gulseren Akyuz

Gunes Senol

Gunnar Hillerdal

H. Mazimilian Mehdorn

Hadi Almohsen

Hakan Cokmez

Hakan Turkon

Hala Abdelkarem*

Hala Amer

Halah Mosli

Halil Ozcan

Halls Suleyman

Hamed Adetunji

Hani Mawardi Mawardi

Hao Zhang

Hassan AbdulJabbar

Hassan Abugad

Hassan Al-Trabolsi

Hatice Simsek

Hatim Al-Jifree

Henk Schonewille

Hesham A. AbdelHalim

Hisakazu Nakajima

Hongxun Wu

Hui-shan Wang

I Reid

Ibraheem Abosoudah

Ilhan Ece

Ilker M. Arer

Imran Ahmad

Inci Alacacioglu

Isra Aljazeeri

Iyad Naeem Muhammad

Jacqueline Maria Dias

Jawahir Abuhaimed

Jigeeshu Vasishtha Divatia

Joan L. Robinson

Jone Trovik

Jong Woo Chung

Joshua Barzilay

Jyoshid R. Balan

Jyrki Vuola

Kazuya Takehana

Kenji Hayashida

Kevin Hellman

Khaled Hamed Salem

Khaled Saad

Khalid Al-Mugheed

Khalid Alshahrani

Khalid Banimelhem

Khalil Abu Jamileh

Kostas Persinakis

L. Faggioni*

Lamia Elgarhy

Lamya Alnaim

Lasitha Samarakoon

Latifa Yahya Al Ajeel

Layth Al-Hajjar

Leman Acun Delen

Leo Massari

Liang Zong

Li-ming Yu

Li-Ting Kao

Magdalena Baymakova

Magdi Salih

Maha Aleid

Maha Alharthi

Maha Elkholy

Mahwish Faizan

Maja Surbatovic

Mamdouh Allahyani

Mana Almuhaideb

Manar Nabolsi

Man-sang Wong

Marcone Lima Sobreira

Mario Lima

Martin H. Steinberg

Martino Introna

Marwa Abdelhamed

Maryam Al Badi

Maryam Al-Zahrani

Marzia Miglionico

Mateusz Spalek

May Bin-Jumah

Mazen Almehmadi*

Md. Rabiul Islam

Mehmet Ali Eren

Mehmet Artac

Mehmet Burak Eskin

Mert Senturk

Michael D. Crossland

Michele Merli

Milan Lepic

Miltos Lazarides

Mine Kiseli

Mirjana Kostic

Misra Abdulahi

Moba Al Shahed

Mohamed AlAgeel

Mohamed I. Kamel

Mohamed S. Abdel-Latif

Mohammad A. Gaballah

Mohammad Abdelghani

Mohammad Abu Assab

Mohammad Alam

Mohammad Alfuhaily

Mohammad Eid Mahfouz

M. Waheed El-Anwar

Mohammed AlAteeq

Mohammed Alhendi

Mohammed Alsaadi

Mohammed Alsakkaf

Mohammed Salih Mahfouz

Mohd Yazid Bajuri

Mohsen Alzahrani

Mona F. Mahmoud

Morten Dahl

Mostafa Waly

Muath Alammar

Muhammad Kashif Munir

Muhanna AlShaibani

Munierah Al-Hussain

Murat Baykara

Murat Gunay

Mushtak T. S. Al-Ouqaili

Mustafa Arslan

Mustafa Said Aydogan

N. Hancerliogullari

Nadia Alhazmi

Nagwa Alamin

Naser Shari

Nasser Shubayr

Nawal Dayoub

Nesrin Alharthy

Nicola Magnavita

Nicola Mumoli

Nicola Troisi

Noorizan Abd Aziz

Nopporn Apiwattanakul

Noura Alqahtani

Nuha Alkhattabi

Nuri Bayram

Odd Martin Vallersnes

Ola A. Bakry

Omar Al Zahrani

Onur Fezvi Erer

Osama A. Samargandi

Osama B. Albasheer

Paolo Boffano

Paolo Cavoretto

Philip S. Barie

Pinar Korkmaz

Pinar Okyay

Polina Popova

Pradeep H. Navsaria

Q. E. Ali

Q. Ji

Qin Xiang Ng

Qintai Yang

Qun Wang

R. A. Gadelkareem

Rabie Soliman

Raghib Abusaris

Ram Das

Ram Samujh

Ramazan Akcan

Rami Abazid

Raymon Siu Ming Wong

Recep Akdur

Rehab Werida

Reinaldo Figueroa

Riwa Kishimoto

Roah Merdad

Ronald Oude Elferink

Rose Costa

Rudyard dos Santos Oliveira

Saad AlKhowaiter

Saad Alqahtani

Sabah Jastaneiah

Saddam Al Demour

Sakina Zerizer

Saleh Alanazi

Salih Ozgocmen

Salina Husain

Samah Abohamr*

Sameh Ahmed

Sameh Shehata

Samera AlBasri*

Sami Abu-Halaweh

Samy Kasem

Satyabhuwan Singh Netam

Sayed Abdulazeez

Selim Afsar

Selma Tosun

Sema Alacam

Serbulent Yigit

Seshadri Reddy Varikasuvu

Seyda Efsun Ozgunay

Shawn Thomas

Sheela Mathew

Sherif Abdelmonim

Shi-Yang Guan

Shoroq Altawalbeh

Shu-Qin yu

Sibtain Ahmed

Siraj Wali

Sirajudeen Shaik Alavudeen

Siva Reddy Challa

Sohaib Al-Khatib

Sohaib Shujaat

Sohail Ahmad

Stefan Opperman

Stefan Stortecky

Stephanie Baggio

Subhi Alghanem

Suhael Ahmed

Suheyla Abitagaoglu

Sultan Alamri

Sultan Alhowti

Sultan Ayesh Saghir

Sumayah Al Helali

Susan Busch

Svetlana Madjunkova

Tahir Hameed*

Taisuke Ito

Talal Alfaadhel

Tamer Abouelgreed

Tatjana Pekmezovic

Taymour Mostafa

Turki Albacker

Turki Al-Hussain

Ulunay Kanatli

Umut Sabri Kasapoglu

V. Bedekovic

Veli Avci

Vikas Gupta

Wafa I. Elhag

Waled Ahmed

Waleed Abdelfattah

Waleed Milaat

Waqas Sami

Wei Kang

Xiang-jun Qiu

Yasemin Astandaa

Yasir Khayyat

Yasser Hadi

Yasser Samhan

Yassin Abdelsamad

Yoichi Nishimura

Yong Joo Kim

Yoshikatsu Nomura

Young Han Lee

Youssef M. Mosaad

Yusuf Aksu

Zaid Zoumot

Zainab A. Al Jufairi

Zakaria Al Habib

Zubair Syed

Zulqarnain Baloch

*Reviewers who reviewed 3 or more articles for the year 2023