Family Practice Management relies on reader surveys, input from our Editorial Advisory Board, and our staff editors' knowledge of hot topics, as well as a few other inputs, to develop a content plan to meet your needs and interests. The breadth of nonclinical challenges in family medicine, differences between the needs of employed family physicians and owner physicians, and the rapid pace of change in health care delivery, among other things, complicate this task. But deciding what topics to target is actually the easier part.

Because FPM is a peer-reviewed journal that aims primarily to present articles written by family physicians, our bigger challenge is often finding in-the-trenches physicians who feel they have the time, subject matter expertise, and writing skill to produce a useful and interesting FPM article. Sometimes it takes a little convincing. Doctors didn't go to medical school to learn how to run a practice, and they certainly didn't go to medical school to learn how to run a practice and write about it, as we've been told by more than one hesitant author.

Sometimes the best motivator is the idea that, in writing about your experience, you can help other family physicians, whether it's to help them avoid learning the hard way, help them make the solution easier to implement, or simply help them see that they're not alone in their struggle. In all of these ways, an FPM article can make practicing family medicine more rewarding.

And an FPM editor can make developing an article easier. We have been facilitating the process for almost 22 years, and the longevity of the journal suggests that the results have been pretty good. Today we have articles in our pipeline on communicating with patients about unnecessary testing, optimizing patient portals, managing your online reputation, e-prescribing, ensuring patient safety, and preventing burnout. However, we always need more, which brings me to the main point: We hope you will consider writing for FPM.

Ask yourself how you have made practice better for yourself, your staff, and your patients. How have you lowered costs, increased revenue, improved quality, or increased satisfaction? If you've got a story to tell, we would like to help you tell it.

Later this month Ken Adler, MD, MMM, FPM medical editor, will be convening our Editorial Advisory Board for our annual meeting, and we will spend significant time talking about what topics to cover in the issues ahead as well as who can write about them. We would love to put your article on our agenda.

Here are a few ideas just to stimulate your thinking, but what we are most interested in is the topic that your experience, knowledge, insight, and inspiration make you best qualified to write about:

• Patient satisfaction surveys,

• Leadership skills for team-based care,

• Managing wait times,

• Optimizing patient flow,

• Pre-visit planning,

• Hiring, training, and retaining a medical assistant,

• Working with difficult people,

• Patient adherence.

Give it some thought. If you've got an idea and another potential author to suggest, we're interested in that too. Just email us at the address below.