The good news is that, as reflected in our abstract submissions, there is a deep pool of good work in hospital medicine to write about and publish. The other good news is that our field is one in which many of the best innovations and much of the important research comes from community settings and not just academic centers. In fact our strength in research comes from the fact that we can draw from both academic and community programs to create new, “generalizable” knowledge. An even greater strength is when these programs collaborate to take advantage of the best that each has to offer to research.
I encourage each of us to think about the work we are doing and to think about what innovative, creative, or successful program should be shared and implore each of us to submit our work to JHM. Help make JHM the best source for innovation and best practices in hospital medicine. Help shape JHM into the best possible journal it can be—the one you open right away and read through because it is so relevant to your practice.
As our field grows we will look back on this moment as a critical landmark in the development of our field. Hold on to your first issue: It may be a valuable collector’s item when volume 50 is being published and JHM is one of the world’s leading journals. What practices will we look back on and laugh at? What practices will have survived years of scrutiny? What will our field look like? Only time will tell. Read JHM to find out. TH
SHM President Dr. Pantilat is an associate professor of clinical medicine at the University of California at San Francisco.