Online Journal of Rural Nursing and Health Care, 1(1) 1 

Editorial 

Letter from the Editor:  Welcome 

Jeri W. Dunkin, PhD, RN, Editor 

 

Welcome to the Online Journal of Rural Nursing and Health Care, the official Journal of 

the Rural Nurse Organization.  In this time of rapidly expanding knowledge and shrinking 

resources, the time is appropriate to have a mechanism for rural health professionals to access 

current research and practice information in an expedient and economical manner.  I hope you 

find the Journal informative and easy to use.  We have tried to make the format "user friendly."  

Please feel free to contact me with comments and suggestions as we continue to refine the style 

and format of the Journal.  You will notice several features that make the Journal unique.  For 

example, each article has a discussion forum attached that facilitates discussion and networking 

among readers and author(s).  Additionally, each of the columns has the e-mail address of the 

editorial board member responsible for that column so that you, the reader, can provide feedback 

and suggestions for future topics.  You can be as interactive as you wish, and we hope that you 

will become very involved in the discussion groups.  Finally, the citations in the text are "linked" 

to an alert box so that you can see the full reference immediately without losing your place in the 

article.  Also, each citation in the reference list is linked to its respective MEDLINE record, 

should one exist, which takes advantage of the National Library of Medicine's PubMed service. 

The Online Journal of Rural Nursing and Health Care is a peer-reviewed interdisciplinary 

journal that focuses primarily on rural nursing but not exclusively.  This decision was made by 

the board of The Rural Nurse Organization as the Journal concept was developed because rural 

practice is necessarily interdisciplinary.  Future plans call for the Journal to be indexed in 



 

Online Journal of Rural Nursing and Health Care, 1(1) 2 

CINAHL and MEDLINE within the upcoming year.  There are requirements for listing that 

includes numbers of issues published that must be met first, but rest assured that our Managing 

Editor, Dr. Steven MacCall, will have the Journal listed as soon as possible. 

On behalf of the Editorial Board of the Online Journal of Rural Nursing and Health Care 

and the Rural Nurse Organization, I thank you for being a part of this new venture.  If I can be of 

assistance please do not hesitate to e-mail me at jdunkin@nursing.ua.edu.