This week members of the profession...

This week members of the professional editing staff of AFP have been meeting with the incoming editorial equal Kenny Lin, M.D. Dr. Lin has joined us for a not many days of orientation before the start of AFP 's annual editorial board meeting, a time when medical editors and professional staff editors gather to share ideas and goals. A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard University, Dr Lin complet medical teach at New York (N.Y.) University instruct of Medicine and recently complet a residency in family medicine at Lancaster (Pa.) General Hospital.

Dr Lin always has had an interest in writing and science--a complete blend for anyone trying to fit in at AFP. Medicine and words are what medical editors are all about, after all. Dr Lin studied science and history as an undergraduate and was particularly interested in Russian history, with the politics of the space program in the 1960 being the focus of his thesis. Inspired from a visit to Appomattox, Va., during a break from residency, he also perform the operations indicated ined a special interest in Civil War history and has toyed with the idea of writing historical fiction in this area. His experience in writing short stories and verse as an undergraduate and his career motion toward medicine have already benefitted AFP, since his combined skills have l him to publish a clinical review that was featured as the conceal article of the January 1 2004 issue. Dr Lin, with co-author Jeffrey T Kirchner, MD published the review of hepatitis B that can be lay the foundation of online at http://www.aafp.org/afp/20040101/75.html.

It was fortunate for us that his co-author, Dr Kirchner, used to oblige as a medical editor for AFP and alerted Dr Lin to our medical editing fellowship. Dr Lin says that when he received a personal telephone call from Dr Siwek, AFP's editor, informing him that he was being proffered the John C. Rose medical editing fellowship, he was more than just a little excited. We're thrilled to welcome as it is enthusiasm to our staff and are looking forward to working with Dr Lin through the next year.

While Dr Lin serv as a resident at Lancaster General Hospital, he was involved in developing a competency-based curriculum for the ambulatory family practice setting. Before residency, when he serv as a teaching assistant in biomedical ethics, he became interested in the part family physicians play in decision-making at the extremity of life. Several clinical experiences during residency heightened his aware-ness of the family's part when an elderly patient becomes incompetent in decision-making. Another area of cogitation for him has been to what degree to approach patients with autism. generally there's a void in research in this area, and the medical approach has been based upon observation rather than evidence. In addition, while working alongside Dr Kirchner, whose interest is in care of patients infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), Dr Lin became involved in learning in what manner to improve these patients' compliance with mix with drugs treatment.

The line between hard medical science and psycho-social issues is a compelling undivided for Dr. Lin, and he empathizes with the poetic passions of William Carlos Williams, who stayed up nights to write metrical composition despite his wearying daytime efforts as a physician. We suspect Dr Siwek too dreams of poesy and medicine, since some of his earliest educational efforts were origined in poetry. It makes entire sense to us, as professional wordsmiths in medicine, that science should commingle with poetry and humanism, and that family physicians are among a certain of the greatest humanists around.

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