In December 1999, as the new millennium neared, Richard Smith, former editor of the BMJ, and Alex Williamson, Publishing Director of BMJ Journals, offered one of us (CH) the opportunity to assume the position of editor of this journal. The sage counsel of the retiring editor, John Forrester, was sought. On his advice, Andrew Dick was named UK editor, to run with a non-UK editor. Despite all the changes John Forrester had already brought to the journal, this was a conceptual prospect for the BJO to advance the BMJ publishing group’s mission of global dissemination of medical and scientific knowledge. The two of us agreed that each of us would assume an …