A Start of a New Era

It is my pleasure to announce the start of a new journal of ophthalmology- Latin American Journal of Ophthalmology (https://Latinamericanjo.com) (LAJO) to promote new developments and academia in the Latin American hemisphere. There are many small ophthalmology groups working to enhance the practice of ophthalmology in Latin America; however, there was a need to have a larger journal to bring all the activities of Latin America under one umbrella. Iam very pleased and humbled to accept the role of Editor-in-Chief of the journal. Iam assisted by very abled Professor Pablo Chiaradia as an associate editor and Dr. Oscar Mallo as a senior consultant to the editor. We also have very prominent ophthalmologists on our editorial board (https://latinamericanjo.com/editorial-board.php) representing many countries from Latin America with an International Advisory Board comprising of very eminent international ophthalmologists.

The LAJO will cover technical and clinical studies related to health, ethical, and social issues in the field of ophthalmology. Manuscripts with high clinical interest and implications will be given preference.

The mission of this journal is to publish, promote, educate, and spread the knowledge of ophthalmology in a manner that enables ophthalmologists to clearly comprehend concepts and practices and encourage further research and technical innovations.

LAJO will have various categories of manuscripts that will cover basic science and instrumentation, general ophthalmology and subspecialties, ophthalmology in medical education, ophthalmology in basic sciences, case reports, technical innovations, review articles, clinical-pathological correlation, letters to editors, and original research.

Many journals consider case reports to have a low impact factor. We feel that case reports are the basic building blocks of medical knowledge in ophthalmology. We strongly encourage authors to send case reports for publication in our journal. We believe that case reports stimulate the reader’s thought processes and encourage them to think of novel and varied paths. This, in turn, results in the generation of new research ideas and is very important in promoting scientific investigation and exploration.

LAJO is committed to meeting and upholding the standards of ethical behavior at all stages of the publication process. We follow closely the industry associations, such as the Committee on Publication Ethics, International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, and World Association of Medical Editors, that set standards and provide guidelines for best practices to meet these requirements. For a summary of our specific policies regarding duplicate publication, conflicts of interest, patient consent, etc., please visit https://Latinamericanjo.com/ethical-guidelines.php.

We have plagiarism check available on our editor’s and reviewer’s panel in the manuscript management system. We encourage our editors and reviewers to use the plagiarism check. Any manuscript with plagiarism will be rejected immediately.

Regarding archival policy, we use PORTICO for our third-party repository for all articles published with us. All our articles are assigned a DOI number. We are members of https://crossref.org.

While advertisements are crucial to this journal to be able to keep all content free for everyone, ethical considerations are in place to ensure the integrity of the journal and its content is not biased or influenced by the advertisement.

Finally, we undertake the mission of having a new journal of ophthalmology with the highest quality standards that will serve as an alternate option for Latin American’s to achieve international standards.

I look forward to your support.