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EDITORIAL

Medicine accelerates growth of scientific research in Brazil

Domingo M. Braile0

DOI: 10.1590/S0102-76382006000300001

Data published by Capes during the 58th Annual Meeting of Brazilian Society for the Progress of Science (BSPS) in Florianópolis, Brazil, in July, show that, even with all the difficulties we are experiencing, research in Brazil is increasing every year.
Although the Brazilian economy grew only 2.4% in 2005, scientific research increased 19% over the same period, increasing from 13,313 to 15,777 articles published! Only two countries had a greater development; China with 29% and India with 21%. This occurred even without any increase in the financing of this important activity in Brazil. From this it was deduced that the productivity of our researchers is more efficient, enabling Brazil to ascend one step higher in the estimations of other nations. Our situation is still not comfortable: we are in 17th position in the ranking of the nations, but it is stimulating to know that we are progressing in respect to this important marker that measures the viability of a country. The production of scientific articles in indexed journals increased 50% over the last five years, which means that in three years we will be in 15th position, overtaking two important competitors, Switzerland and Sweden.
The area that grew most last year was medicine, which for us physicians, is great news; medicine is responsible for 20% of the publications, beating physics, which produced only 15% of the articles, and so losing the supremacy it had had for many years. For Capes, the advances in the production of articles in medicine are mainly due to strictness in the assessment of the post graduation courses. Independent of the factors that led to this increase, the "conquest" of the first place shows the power of medicine and that the effort of colleagues from all specialties of "writing down on paper" the achievements and medical achievements is producing important fruits.
A reflection of this increase in interest for research in Brazil is the rapid growth of the number of accesses to Scielo. According to information from the institution, 6 millions of articles published by Brazilian scientific journals are consulted by Internet through its database each month. The increase in the number of accesses has occurred very quickly, three years ago this number was no more than 200 thousand downloads of articles per month. Scielo has a decisive role in the dissemination of science in our country and the Brazilian Journal of Cardiovascular Surgery (BJCVS) is proud to be among more than 150 publications indexed to this important electronic library.
Even so, we are still insisting on the indexation of our journal in the Medline database to amplify the cover of our publication. Dr David Tirone is in contact with the directorate of Med Pub and Index Medicus in respect to this subject. He wrote a letter giving his support to the RBCCV/BJCVS and will continue to maintain in contact with the directors, following the course of the process. As always, we are optimistic and we soon expect to receive the good news about the indexation of the journal.
Aiming at being in harmony with the desires of our readers and being aware of the ever greater demands - and necessities! - of cardiovascular surgeons to invest part of their time in research and also the ever growing interest in medicine based on evidence, BJCVS is offering a new service to BSCVS members and residents from August. We are offering full texts from some of the most important international periodicals in the area of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery including: "Annals of Thoracic Surgery", "European Journal of Cardio-thoracic Surgery", "Journal of Thoracic and Cardiothoracic Surgery", "Interactive Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery" and "Circulation".
If there is interest for a specific article, look in the index of any of the aforementioned journals and tell us the year, volume, title and page numbers of the article by e-mail to brandau@braile.com.br or brandau@sbccv.org.br. The articles will be sent within two working days by e-mail in Portable Document Format (PDF). You can also consult us about the possibility of sending articles from other journals too. I would like to remind you that the research and downloading is made by Internet and the majority of publications are only available from the 90s. Thus, older articles will be not always possible.
In this issue -- pages 328 and 334 -- we are publishing two antagonistic works about the reutilization of surgical materials. We feel it is our obligation to publishing them so that readers can judge for themselves and contribute with suggestions which are always very welcome. Read, also, the editorial about the theme in page III.
The site of the journal continues to be a great success and at the start of September it had more than 300 members registered, among authors and reviewers. I would like to remind those interested in publishing works that submission is exclusively to the e-mail www.rbccv.org.br. Since implantation, last year, we have had a considerable increase in the number of submissions, even from foreign countries and an improvement in the time necessary to process the articles, making the production of the journal quicker; but we can still improve further! We require authors and reviewers to periodically check their e-mails for possible requests for reviews or to return the manuscript for due corrections.
I would like to inform colleagues that, once again, the BJCVS has requested financial help from CNPq for the production of the journal. Although the money has diminished over the last years and delays several months to be approved and released, it is still extremely important to help with the expenses of editorial work, printing and postage, the costs of which have increased, even with the stability of the economy and international exchange rate. The advertisements that we have, although they are from important companies and institutions, are still few. And so, once again, we ask those of you who have contact with companies and that work in the area of cardiovascular surgery and cardiology or even other areas, to talk to the people responsible for marketing and show them the journal, remembering that it is the vehicle of cardiovascular surgeons, who are always interested in new apparatuses and materials that improve the quality of their work. The executive editor, Ricardo Brandau, the editorial assistant, Rosangela Monteiro and myself, all have pleasure in giving information that potential advertisers find necessary for them to come and place their marks on our pages.

With my warmest wishes,

Domingo Braile
*Editor RBCCV/BJCVS
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