On Being a Doctor

Excerpt

In this issue, we inaugurate a new section in Annals of Internal Medicine, "On Being a Doctor." Since assuming the editorship, we have received occasional submissions, some fictional and others factual, that examined the human experiences of being a doctor and thus reflected the literary and philosophic sides of medicine. These submissions did not fit readily into any existing section of the journal, yet they were about such a central part of being a physician that it seemed Annals should make a place for them.

Annals is, first and foremost, a scientific medical journal. Its major purpose is to disseminate