Editor’s Note: Notice Anything Different?

When I started this column a year ago, I was determined to make it distinct from those editors’ columns that simply rattle off the content of that month’s issue. That’s what the table of contents is for, after all. Just this once, I’m making an exception.

I hope you’ll forgive a little self-indulgence, but so much is different and new about Physicians Practice and PhysiciansPractice.com, starting (mostly) this month, that I just couldn’t resist giving you a run-through. Our tweaks to the content and look of the magazine and Web site will, we think, make it harder to stay away - and encourage you, once you’re here, to stick around and explore us further. To wit:

We’ve developed six new columns, plus a meet-the-staff feature and even a healthcare-themed crossword puzzle. For the most part we’re aiming to be more concise, solutions-oriented, and, well, a little more entertaining. Who says practice management can’t be fun? Yet we still have four in-depth features in every issue, and we’ll continue to offer CME-accredited content six times a year (with 12 credits available online over the course of the year, as always).

What’s new? Our personal finance column, Your Money, is the only one I know of aimed at physicians that isn’t written by someone in the financial services business. No offense to them, but we want to tell you what you really need to know, not sell you insurance. Physician Beware alerts you to practice pitfalls that you may not have known existed and TrendSpotter shines a light on legal, regulatory, and business-climate changes that are on the horizon, while there’s still time to prepare. Solved! is Pamela Moore’s new advice column. And The List is, well … you’d better just see that one for yourself.

Our crack designer gave us a facelift, too; we wanted to look a little more contemporary. You may have noticed minor touch-ups to our cover; even more substantial alterations have been made to the inside pages.

Of all of the new content we’ve developed for 2009, my personal favorite is our “Physician Writer Search” project, which invites you to write essays about your experiences - with the opportunity to see your work in print. Although we do offer some of the good old American green stuff to the authors of selected essays - never let it be said that we expect physicians to work for free - we think most of you who submit your work do it for the chance to simply be heard. You are yearning to communicate, and we want you to know we’re listening.

But it is not just we who are listening. We know you want to hear from each other, too, so in the fall we launched our online forum for physicians and others involved in practice management to give you the chance to commiserate, agitate, or even bloviate. Angry about something you read in our pages or elsewhere? Or maybe you’ve had a new problem crop up in your office, and want to ask colleagues whether they’ve ever dealt with something similar. Just want to gripe - or share a success story? Go for it at forum.physicianspractice.com.

And stop by PhysiciansPractice.com, too. All the usual articles, tools, surveys, and loads of other goodies are there, as always, and we’ve also made a few design tweaks to make it easier to find the stuff you want.

Next month, it’s back to our regularly scheduled Editor’s Note, promise. But first, let me state what hasn’t changed, and never will: We exist for you, doc. Our purpose is to offer you the tools and information that you need to make better decisions about your practice, so that you can enjoy your work, be a better physician, and have a happier life.

That’s not too much to ask. And we’re happy to help.

Bob Keaveney is the executive editor of Physicians Practice. Tell him what you think of the magazine’s changes, or anything else that’s on your mind at bob.keaveney@cmpmedica.com.

This article originally appeared in the January 2009 issue of Physicians Practice.