SPM president Joe Ternullo, formerly of Partners Healthcare, sent this letter to our members this week. It will also be posted as an editorial on the Journal’s site.

Our Journal, begun as a grass roots initiative at the Society’s formation, is a crown jewel. It was the first peer-reviewed publication to focus exclusively on patient empowerment, and was created as a beachhead to establish participatory medicine as a legitimate area of academic pursuit. Volunteer editors-in-chief Charles Smith, Joe Graedon and Terry Graedon (and the late Jessie Gruman) have been steadfast and have expertly run the Journal.  Accomplishments include:

• 227 articles published  
• 7,000 visits to journal website monthly
• 10,000 pageviews monthly
• 21 articles currently in review

What accounts for the Journal’s success?  What are the needs?  How can you get involved? What are the benefits of involvement? 

Success: It is all about great people!  Authors have continued to submit high quality, relevant and timely topics while the Journal’s team of committed professionals have been persistent in quietly and competently ensuring that precepts of participatory medicine are diffused to advance care and improve lives.

Needs: The Journal has ongoing “high impact” potential and relevance.   Needs include:  (a) Readers: please read the articles as they are published, comment on them and inform your friends, (b) Reviewers and Authors: please sign up to review a manuscript so that we can accelerate publication or, alternatively, share your viewpoint, educate others and get published! – – submit an article for publication, (c) Sustainability: help develop a sustainable economic model that ensures the Journal’s continuation.

Involvement: We welcome your involvement.  Email Dr. Charles W. Smith, co-editor in chief of the Journal, at cwsmith@uams.edu, or me at jternullo@post.harvard.edu. 

Benefits: The benefits of your involvement include: (a) a leadership opportunity to help build your career, (b) working with great people, (c) making a difference to advance care and improve lives, and (d) meeting an unmet need.

Come join us at the Journal of Participatory Medicine.  You are needed. The Journal’s success thus far is a tribute to Dr. Smith, Joe and Terry Graedon and team. Add to that success. There is no better time to get involved than right now.    Together, we can help take the Journal to the next level and great new success. 

We look forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,

Joe 

Joseph Ternullo, JD, MPH
President, Society for Participatory Medicine