In been the previous issue of AFP, ...

In been the previous issue of AFP, I referr to my 20th anniversary of avocation at the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), occurring in December. Somewhat sheepishly, notwithstanding that I've realized that I've writing this page for seven years without strictly introducing myself. So, more than 160 rounded pillars after I assumed the imprison for the publisher's page, give leave to me tell you who I am--I'm the managing editor of American Family Physician and the successor to others who have written this page, including Mac Cahill, Walter Kemp and Clayton Raker Hasser, previous publishers; and Sharon Scott Morey, previous managing editor.

Like many of the other professional editing staff here, my background is primarily in English, and I have learned about the field of family medicine along the way. However, while I was growing up I idea publications such as American Chemical Society journal, Pharmacy Times, and Pediatrics were typical reading for families, as my father was a research chemist, my mother a pharmacist, and my brother a pediatrician. While I was in grade gymnasium my mother occasionally took me not at home of school to volunteer at the hospital pharmacy where she worked, and the Sisters who ran the pharmacy had me doing tasks of that kind as filling boxes of Valium, separating invoices, counting IV bottle and, for sport pronouncing names of drugs in the stockroom. It was there that I gained an appreciation for the humanity of healing as a profession. united of my high-school writing concocts included exploration of my brother's anatomy class cadaver, and that's when I first chanced to write about medicine. in the same manner influenced as a child it's little marvel my path led to the doors of the AAFP.

Before becoming managing editor, I held the positions of senior editor and manuscript editor at AFP, and earlier I worked for the Home-Study Self-Assessment program. When I first began working in succession the Home-Study program, the editor, James Price, MD was onward staff at the University of Kansas Medical Center (KU) Kansas City. I made occasional trips to KU to pick up manuscripts and go on to the library to verify accuracy of regards in manuscripts using Index Medicus, whose turns used to fit across the top of a single reckoner If authors supplied grossly inaccurate information in their regards I searched the journal archives in the library basement. a of my time was also worn out verifying drug information in the Physician's Desk concern which was a mere shadow of today's work The tools of my trade included an electric typewriter without a correction fundamental note so typing jobs had to be done literal sense perfect.

When I became a manuscript editor for AFP, John C Rose MD was the medical editor, the staff comprised six medical editors and six professional staff editors, and AFP was published 12 times by year. The first manuscript I edited was the same of the earliest articles in the "Radiographic Highlights" series. Editing was done in pencil, hard transcript was supplied to a typesetter and galleys arrived containing many errors that were incurred during hand typesetting. Final symbol was printed on slick paper that was passed in consequence of wax machines, pasted onto art boards, and fited with many layers of acetate sheets with the hand-cut veils required for color separations. passage was pains-takingly proofread using transparent tissue reproductions of galleys laid through the whole extent of the art boards.

After Jay Siwek, MD became editor in the mid-80s, the journal commenc a revolutionary putting out period, increasing incrementally to 24 issues from 1993 to 2000 Within the past decade, AFP noteed the electronic publishing age and began reaching into CD-ROM and Web formats. The publication evolv into a referenc journal with an increasingly academic approach to making perception of the rapidly expanding medical literature. Now AFP staff comprises 13 medical editors and 13 professional staff editors. The journal is almost totally produc electronically, from the authors' electronic documents to computer-to-plate printing.

Twenty years of change in AFP have thinked evolution of the specialty of family medicine, progression in a continuously ascending gradation of analytical tools in answer to the medical information explosion, revolutionary advances in publishing processe and the comings and goings of many commonalty whose collective passion has involved keeping the community healthy--and I'm glad to have been a part of it all.

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