A few weeks ago, the professional editors of AFP welcomed an assembly of medical editors to the Leawood, Kan., editorial office at the AAFP headquarters for our annual editorial board meeting. In a few weeks, some of the medical editors and professional staff editors will be traveling to the 2003 AAFP National Assembly in New Orleans. Both of these meetings give editors a chance to meet with each other, and at Assembly we also have a chance to meet with our readers. It's a busy time, with production of journal issues sandwiched between meetings, but we expect a lot of ourselves on behalf of our readers.

Here's what we accomplished during the first week of August:

• Rebecca Poage, M.D., AFP's newest medical editing fellow who works in the Washington, D.C., editorial office, spent three days in orientation at the AAFP publications division in Leawood before attending the annual AFP editorial board meeting. She met with Academy leaders, including Douglas Henley, M.D., and learned about each department in the publications division. Much of her time, however, was spent in the AFP editorial department learning more about the workings of the journal.

• For two full days at the AAFP editorial offices, the medical editors and professional staff editors participated in the annual board meeting. This year we welcomed AFP's new deputy medical editor for EBM into the mix. Mark H. Ebell, M.D., M.S., presented several ideas for enhancing AFP, and we'll be sharing some of them with readers at an upcoming focus group survey. However, the first of Dr. Ebell's ideas already came to fruition with the introduction of the “Point-of-Care Guides” in the September 1, 2003, issue. If you missed the “Sore Throat” article in the previous issue, you might want to go back to take advantage of the patient encounter form offered for family physicians. Dr. Ebell is creating a series of tools that family physicians can use at the point of care in their daily practices.

• During and after the editorial board meeting, AFP editors worked at the National Conference for Residents and Students, held downtown in Kansas City, Mo. There we represented the publications division in the exhibit and had a chance to meet with residents and potential new family physicians.

Next month, AFP editors go on the road to New Orleans, and here's a sampling of what we'll be doing there:

• Several AFP medical editors will be presenting and attending CME sessions during the meeting. Jay Siwek, M.D., AFP's editor, will be presenting a course for new authors, along with Barry Weiss, M.D., editor of Family Medicine; Dr. Ebell will present a course on applications for the pocket-PC user; Barbara Apgar, M.D., associate editor of AFP, will be presenting several workshops on women's health care issues; and Richard Sadovsky, M.D., associate editor of AFP, will present a course on sexuality in older persons. We hope you can join some of these sessions.

• Several of AFP's medical and professional editors will be on hand at the publications division booth on the exhibit floor hall to meet with authors and readers. We hope many readers stop by to visit with us and fill out a short survey.

• We'll be conducting focus group surveys to collect opinions from readers about AFP's editorial content and online version.

• We'll be observing readers as they test various online features of AFP.

As I said, it's a busy time, but it's all about you, AFP's readers.