Memo From The Editor

The Board

Marianne Dekker Mattera

Last issue I told you about some of the changes we've made to the look and feel of the magazine and the added emphasis on shorter, action-oriented articles. Helping us put this package together for you is a group of doctors who haven't gotten the attention they deserve over the years. Their names used to be listed on the masthead as Contributing Editors. To gain that status, they had only to write a certain number of articles per year.

Over the past year, we've broadened their responsibility to include significant consultation. We've asked them to become involved in the planning of the magazine to suggest articles as well as write them, to serve as sources for staff writers or to point the writers to other physicians if they don't have expertise in the area in question, to alert us to trends, to tell us what kinds of articles their colleagues want more of and what we've done to death.

A new title reflects those new responsibilities; so does the increased visibility we've given these doctors of whom we ask so much. On the second page of Contents in a highly visible yellow tint panel, you'll find the names of the 10 physicians who comprise what we now acknowledge as our Editorial Board.

I won't list their names here, for lack of space, but many you'll recognize from articles they've written in the past. Others you'll recognize because they've been quoted in articles that members of our staff have written. Not only do they represent the specialties of most of our readers, they come from a wide range of practice types small groups, large groups, solo practice. They have academic ties and ties to the business, insurance, and health policy communities. They are from small towns and big cities. They are male and female. They are MD and DO. And they're all smart, well-connected people, committed to the magazine and to making it serve your needs.

We found out just how smart, connected, and committed they are at our first Editorial Board meeting last September. What an energizing two days they were! We shared information about national and local trends affecting medicine, the realities of publishing, and the realities of practice. What doctors want to hear about, and how they want to hear it. What works in a magazine and what doesn't. Many of the ideas exchanged have been translated into the pages of the magazine already. Many you'll see as the year goes on.

Unlike the relationship of clinical journals and their editorial boards, we don't expect to ask permission of our Board to run any given article. After all, if doctors were experts on the intricacies of practice management and finance, you wouldn't need to read what we publish. But doctors are the best qualified to know what you want to read about. Because they're just like you. And we're listening.

 

Marianne Mattera. Memo from the Editor: The Board. Medical Economics 2003;2:9.