AAO-HNS Bulletin | Special Edition | January 2021

28 SPECIAL EDITION: 125TH ANNIVERSARY AAO-HNS BULLETIN ENTNET.ORG/BULLETIN John H. Krouse, MD, PhD, MBA Editor in Chief, Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery and OTO Open T he central roles of research, science, and scientific communication were recognized from the early days of the American Academy of Ophthalmology and Oto-Laryngology at the end of the 19th century. Research sponsorship and scientific publication have been interwoven throughout the history of the Academy, and their synergism has been a hallmark of the success of our society over the past 125 years. It is important to tell their stories together. Otolaryngologists have always been enthusiastic to present their experiences at regional and national meetings, and the importance of disseminating these presentations in writing was appreciated by scientists and clinicians at the turn of the 20th century. Transactions from meetings in 1896 and 1897 were collected, preserved, and disseminated, and beginning in 1903, these papers were released in a bound, hardcover collection as the Transactions of the American Academy of Ophthalmology and Oto-Laryngology. Known informally as the Transactions, these collections were published annually until 1941, and then bimonthly until 1975. It is interesting to note that the Board at that time decided to invest in the publication of these scientific papers, in part due to member feedback on the value- added benefit of this publication to their annual dues. Concurrent with the period of the Transactions , in 1921 the Academy established the Research Fund, using an investment of $27,000 endowed by Liberty Bonds purchased during World War I. In addition an annual dues assessment of $5 per member contributed to this fund. By the 1930s it had grown to over $100,000, and the fund’s interest provided research support annually. Management of these funds allowed grants of both large and small amounts, and in the 1940s they facilitated research to be published in the Transactions . In 1960 the title of this endowment was changed to the Educational Trust Fund, and proceeds were used to sponsor a range of activities including advanced study, the training of teachers, and educational and scientific research. This Fund continued to provide disbursements until 1977, when on the separation of the ophthalmology and otolaryngology groups, its market value of $703,377 was equally divided between the two new societies. In 1975 Transactions was separated into two publications, one for ophthalmology and one for otolaryngology. In 1977 the otolaryngology version was retitled to Otolaryngology, under the leadership of the journal’s first Editor in Chief, Mansfield F.W. Smith, MD, MS. Under Dr. Smith’s guidance, the journal also was modified to a peer-reviewed format from simply one publishing papers collated from the society’s Annual Meeting. Throughout that time period, the title of the journal was changed twice, resulting in its present title, Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery, concurrent with the formal change in name of the Academy in 1981. Over the past 40 years, there has been ongoing evolution of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery, with expansion of its pages of content and steady growth in its influence. Under the leadership of its second Editor in Chief, Bruce W. Pearson, MD, the journal increased the number of papers published from 117 to 368 between 1985 and 1991. The journal continued to grow and flourish under the next two Editors in Chief, J. Gail Neely, MD, and G. Richard Holt, MD, MSE, MPH, MABE, DBE, with a significant influx in international papers submitted. Concurrent with the journal’s expansion, in 1983 the Academy’s second President under the newly organized structured, George A. Sisson, Sr., MD, established a research office in the AAO-HNSF to promote the establishment of a research fund supported by members and corporate donations. The Foundation Research Endowment Fund was formally announced in December 1983, with the goal of accruing $5 million. This initiative resulted in the Centralized Otolaryngology Research Efforts (CORE) program in 1985, which has grown substantially over the past 35 years and has awarded over $12 million in grant funding. Many otolaryngologists have benefitted from this ongoing program, and many have leveraged these CORE funds into extramural grants from the National Institutes of Health and other funding agencies. In 2000 the journal’s editorship was assumed by Michael S. Benninger, MD, who oversaw several significant changes in the operations of the journal. At that time the editorial offices of the journal were moved to the Academy’s headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia, and much of the submission, review, and editorial process was converted to an online platform. The number of submissions grew to 1,300 annually by the beginning of 2006. In 2006 Richard M. Rosenfeld, MD, MPH, MBA, began his eight-year term as Editor in Chief. He brought a sharp focus to evidence-based medicine and further increased the journal’s focus on high-quality papers, including systematic reviews. At the same time, Dr. Rosenfeld led the AAO-HNSF’s efforts in developing quality knowledge products, including clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) and clinical consensus statements (CCSs), which changed their name to expert consensus statements (ECS) in 2020. These rigorous, evidence- based reviews have been conducted on a broad series of topics over the past 15 years, and many CPGs are among the most highly The Roles of Research and Scientific Communication in theAAO-HNS/F’sHistory