The Archives of Surgery began publication in 1920. It is an international peer-reviewed journal published 12 times a year; the online version is published on the third Monday of the month. A Middle Eastern edition of Archives of Surgery is published bimonthly. Archives of Surgery is the official publication of the New England Surgical Society, the Pacific Coast Surgical Association, and the Western Surgical Association. The editor envisions the journal as a sounding board and forum for all the changes that are occurring in surgery today, including training paradigms, the 80-hour work week, women and minorities in surgery, malpractice concerns, and universal access to health care. The acceptance rate is about 54%. The average time from submission to final decision is 1.8 months; from acceptance to publication, 5.5 months. Its impact factor is 3.06 (the impact factor is a measure of citation rate per article, and is calculated by dividing 1 year's worth of citations to a journal's articles published in the previous 2 years by the number of major articles [eg, research papers, reviews] published by that journal in those 2 years). The editor is Julie Ann Freischlag, MD, the William Stewart Halsted Professor and chair of the Department of Surgery at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore, MD (see the Archives Editorial Board).

Mission Statement: To promote the art and science of surgery by publishing relevant peer-reviewed clinical and basic science information to assist the surgeon in optimizing patient care. The Archives of Surgery will also serve as a forum for the discussion of issues that involve ethics, teaching, surgical history, and socioeconomic concerns.

Access for Developing Countries: The online version of Archives of Surgery is made freely available or nearly so to institutions in countries with a per person GDP of $3000 or less, through the World Health Organization’s HINARI program (see list of countries).