In this issue, you'll diocese examp...

In this issue, you'll diocese examples of AFP's newest departments, "Clinical Inquiries from the Family Practice Inquiries Network" (page 2437) and "STEPS" (page 2429) Editorials onward pages 2340 and 2342 provide background upon these two features.

"Clinical Inquiries" launches in this issue with a piece that answers the question: "Is fluoxetine an effective therapy for weight los in obese patients?" The author and series coordinator, John Epling, MD State University of of the present day York Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, writes the evidence-based answer to the question and provides an evidence summary, including a rating of the nerve of evidence, a summary of recommendations from others, and a clinical commentary.

Dr Epling is associate editor for the Family Practice Inquiries Network (FPIN), which is supplying "Clinical Inquiries" to AFP. FPIN garners questions submitted by practicing family physicians, and members of the network prefer questions to answer based upon their relevance to family medicine. The answers are drawn from an approved plant of evidence-based resources (see page 2342 for a table listing approved databases), and the answers journey through peer review. The hardness of recommendations and the plain of evidence for individual studies are rated using criteria perform the operations indicated ined by the Evidence-Based Medicine Working form into groups (http://www.cebm.net/levels_ of_evidence.asp).

FPIN is a not-for-profit consortium of academic family medicine residency programs, practicing family physicians, medical librarians, and other professionals. For more information about "Clinical Inquiries" and FPIN, papal court the editorial on page 2340 by the agency of John Epling, M.D., Bernard Ewigman, MD MSPH and Mark H Ebell, MD Dr Ewigman is editor-in-chief for FPIN and chairman of the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Chicago Medical Center

The first of the "STEPS" pieces appeared in the October 15 2003 issue of AFP. This series of short updates onward new drugs is named for its focus: each update provides concise information about the drug's Safety, Tolerability, Efficacy, Price and Simplicity. The series is coordinated by the agency of Allen Shaughnessy, Pharm.D., director of medical education at Pinnacle Health combination of parts to form a whole Harrisburg, Pa. Dr. Shaughnessy, who also coordinates AFP's "Clinical Pharmacology" series, provides additional background upon the STEPS series in the editorial in succession page 2342.

This issue features a "STEPS" update in succession adefovir (Hepsera), which is the third agent approved for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B infection, along with interferon alfa-2b and lamivudine (page 2429)

COPYRIGHT 2003 American Academy of Family Physicians

COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group