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(Pediatrics in Review. 2008;29:3-4.)
© 2008 American Academy of Pediatrics
Commentary |
Many elements in our lives can overwhelm us and overload our circuits, including responsibilities, worries, and conflicting appointments. Even some treats we enjoy can get to be too much, such as tomatoes in the garden at the peak of the season, photographs waiting to be organized, and exceptional books crying out to be read. Another flood that threatens to engulf us is information. Even if we ignore the obviously misleading or irrelevant rivers of data flowing toward our minds, there is enough worthwhile, relevant, desirable information coming our way to sweep us over the falls.
Restricting our focus to medical knowledge, and even further to an understanding of pediatric medicine, we still find that sector of the information ocean stretching out to the horizon and getting bigger every year. There used to be lectures, seminars, workshops, textbooks, and journals. All of these sources have multiplied, and we have added continuing medical education courses, teleconferences, CDs and DVDs, and that infinite highway to knowledge about everything under the sun and beyond, the Internet. No wonder many practitioners feel they are lost at sea and going down for the third time.
Pediatrics in Review® (PIR) and the PREP program exist to throw you a life preserver and a compass. Our primary mission is to focus on the essentials of pediatric medicine and to present current thinking about each aspect of that body of knowledge to keep readers up to date. We are fortunate to have access to the content specifications of the American Board of Pediatrics, which has created a database that defines that core. In any given 5-year period, PIR and the PREP Self-Assessment cover that content, allowing readers to refresh their knowledge in a constant, renewing fashion. In the process, steady readers are preparing themselves for the cognitive testing involved in maintenance of certification.
We continue to recruit our material from the best teachers in our profession and to spend countless hours making what is written readable and lucid. The individuals who produce PIR at all levels know what it is like to come home after a long day and try to learn even more. With that sensitivity, we attempt to make our teaching as user-friendly as we can.
Realizing that there are relevant and interesting topics outside the core content, we have expanded our horizons, adding two new sections in the last 2 years. Many parents are using or asking about therapies outside of conventional medicine, and we publish a regular series on complementary and alternative treatments. As strong believers in the role of pediatricians in the wider community, we publish another regular feature on community pediatrics that highlights innovative and effective programs in that area.
Our electronic edition has allowed us to broaden the spectrum of pediatric subjects even further. By publishing one or two articles each month in the online-only format, we have created new space to give our readers insights into topics such as telemedicine, continuing medical education, and the electronic medical record. The electronic capability has allowed us to provide recordings of heart murmurs as well as still and moving pictures. The online edition also allows for Rapid Response, through which readers can give us instant feedback on articles and we can provide clarifications with equal speed. We urge readers who are using the online journal to click the Rapid Response line every time they read an article to see if there is any information that has been added after publication. Most clarifications are published in the print edition as well, but with an inevitable lag time.
We have extended our reach beyond our borders in several ways. Clinicians in developing countries can access the electronic version of the journal free of charge. Authors from around the world have contributed material, especially through "Index of Suspicion" cases, which have come from authors living in 22 countries. We have published a commentary from Italy as part of an article on evaluation of athletes, and we hope to bring you more of these perspectives. PIR has been published in Chinese, Italian, Hungarian, Polish, and Spanish, with a Turkish translation starting up.
Residents rank among our most avid readers, and we have a special relationship with these young physicians. Many residents have written "Index of Suspicion" cases, and each year we choose a case from their case-writing contest to publish. "Focus on Diagnosis," now in its fourth year, is written exclusively by residents, who share their knowledge of cutting-edge diagnostic procedures. All pediatric residents in the United States receive a complementary subscription to PIR, funded mainly by an unrestricted grant from Abbott Nutrition.
A great many people work hard to make PIR what it is, and I would like to acknowledge the contributions of Drs Tina Cheng and Joseph Zenel, our invaluable Associate Editors; Drs Henry Adam and Janet Serwint, who prepare the "In Brief" articles; Dr Laura Ibsen, who provides media of all kinds; and our Medical Copy Editor Deb Kuhlman. AAP staff members Luann Zanzola, Susan Piscoran, Michael Held, and Dr Robert Perelman give us constant support, as does our Editor Emeritus, Dr Robert Haggerty. Our publishers, Cadmus and Highwire, create the final product. The whole operation is held together by Sydney Sutherland, our Editorial Assistant.
PIR is privileged to have an Editorial Board of the finest pediatricians and teachers available anywhere, and I extend to them my deep gratitude for the countless hours they donate to make this journal what it is.
Finally, thanks go out to our thousands of readers around the world. You, and especially the children for whom you care, are why we exist.
Lawrence F. Nazarian, MD, Editor-in-Chief
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