The things that matter

As one can see from these pages, our mailbag has been bursting lately. Some of the letters affirm an idea expressed in Yale Medicine, while others offer a wholly different perspective. I hope this means we are covering topics of importance to readers and presenting a diversity of views on questions that are too complex to have simple answers. Just as the university thrives on the exchange of ideas, so does this magazine.

The topics in the Summer issue that drew the greatest response were physician retirement and the malpractice insurance debate. Alumnus Herbert Kaufmann’s article on why he decided to retire while still in his prime (“Knowing When It's Time to Quit”) was unsolicited but perfect for the Essay section. For our feature on the malpractice debate (“Showdown”), we did ask readers for their opinions and received a great number in reply. The letters are still coming.

Next we’re turning our focus to bioethics, a growth area in science and medicine if ever there was one—and an area of increasing strength at Yale. For our Spring issue, we’d like to hear from you about the ethical dilemmas you have faced in your professional life. We will pose the thorniest of these problems to a panel of bioethics experts from the Yale faculty. Please send your story to: Ethics, Yale Medicine, P.O. Box 7612, New Haven, CT 06519-0612 or by e-mail to ymm@yale.edu. We’ll publish a selection of dilemmas, along with responses from our resident experts, in Yale Medicine and on our website, info.med.yale.edu/ymm. And since it is next to impossible to find universal agreement on the things that really matter, expect to see more letters to the editor.

Michael Fitzsousa
michael.fitzsousa@yale.edu