As part of membership services, most professional organizations publish an official journal to keep their members informed of relevant issues and provide current educational services. ACCP has two official journals, the Journal of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy (JACCP) and Pharmacotherapy. These monthly publications strive to meet the diverse needs of the ACCP membership. Each journal has a separate scope of articles that are considered for publication, as described in each journal’s instructions to authors. This column describes some of the differences in how each journal addresses its separate mission.

First, however, a brief history may be helpful. Pharmacotherapy was first published in 1981 as an independent journal by its founding editor, Russell R. Miller, Pharm.D., Ph.D. Miller’s vision as a clinical pharmacist was to establish a journal devoted to clinical pharmacology and therapeutics. He envisioned an interdisciplinary mix of readers and authors consisting of clinical pharmacists, physicians, and clinical pharmacologists. A quick scan of the original editorial board and early issues shows evidence of this vision. As ACCP grew, the need for an official journal became necessary such that, through an RFP process, Pharmacotherapy was chosen as the first and only official ACCP journal in 1988. As the relationship evolved, the journal’s scope included not only all topics relevant to “human pharmacology and drug therapy” (part of the journal’s official title when it was created that still stands today), but also educational issues in clinical pharmacy and clinical pharmacy practice and a variety of official statements from the College. However, with such a diverse scope, maintaining a balance of topics became an increasingly difficult editorial decision in 12 issues with a limited number of pages. Moreover, with the increased quality of papers submitted to Pharmacotherapy in the area of clinical pharmacology and therapeutics, it became more difficult for authors to publish their practice-related scholarship in Pharmacotherapy.

To this end and through ACCP strategic planning processes with broad membership input, a “sister” ACCP journal was created so that there would be two: one devoted to clinical pharmacology and therapeutics and the new one devoted to … well, everything else that is specifically relevant to clinical pharmacists. More succinctly, we lump these topics into (1) analyses and reviews of innovative clinical pharmacy practice, (2) clinical pharmacy education, and (3) health policy affecting clinical pharmacists. In this way, the scope of Pharmacotherapy is more concise, and a new forum specifically for clinical pharmacy issues has been created (in some ways, returning to Miller’s original vision). With these thoughts and this premise, JACCP was founded in 2018 as an electronic journal, where clinical pharmacists and ACCP members now have a forum to submit their work regarding clinical pharmacy practice issues.

Some in the world of publishing were not incredibly keen on beginning a new journal in this era when so many venues are available to scholars. But in 2020, Pharmacotherapy had 770 submissions with an increasing impact factor of 3.473, and, surprising to some, JACCP had 431 submissions, for a total of 1,201 submissions to ACCP’s journals. So, the idea of two official journals with distinct scopes seems to have caught on. Some potential authors remain understandably a bit confused, but we have internal mechanisms to refer papers back and forth. If an author submits a paper in the area of clinical pharmacy practice, Pharmacotherapy may refer the paper to JACCP (and vice versa). We hope these two ACCP journals serve the membership and are a valued resource.