Business As Usual—No Way to Enter 2001

This month I'm taking issue with the common practice of basing our clinical work on what we were taught, are most comfortable doing, or get reimbursed for. In recent years our research enterprises have created a vast repository of information. We—the editorial board and I—believe that this journal would serve our readership best by presenting information that moves us from traditional methods of practice toward those based on research evidence. This year I hope that several initiatives will move us closer to this goal.

First, you may have noticed that we're announcing our focus on evidence-based psychiatry on the cover. Second, each month we will feature at least one article on evidence-based practice in different settings and with different populations. Editorial board members Howard H. Goldman, M.D., Ph.D., and Robert E. Drake, M.D., Ph.D., are editors of this series. In addition, we will feature a new series on disease management, which begins this month with the first of several articles on the treatment of depression under the editorship of Charles L. Bowden, M.D., a leading clinical researcher in the psychopharmacology of mood disorders at the University of Texas. A similar series on the treatment of anxiety disorders, edited by Kimberly A. Yonkers, M.D., of Yale University, a leading researcher, will debut later this year.

We will also focus on the effectiveness of treatment, with a series entitled "From Research to Practice," edited by another member of our board, Robert A. Rosenheck, M.D. Shorter articles about a related area—Best Practices—have already been appearing for several years in a quarterly column by that name edited by William Glazer, M.D., of Harvard University. In addition, we'll have a new Consumer & Family Information page each month, presenting evidence-based information for patients, family members, and the public. This page will be edited by Howard H. Goldman, M.D., with the assistance of another board member, Lisa B. Dixon, M.D., M.P.H., and Jeffrey L. Geller, M.D., M.P.H., editor of the book reviews and the Personal Accounts column.

We're also continuing a quarterly column on Practical Psychotherapy, which was launched in the November 2000 issue and which will complement the new initiatives. The column is edited by Marcia Kraft Goin, M.D., of the University of Southern California.

Someone recently described Psychiatric Services as "a leading clinical journal." That's not good enough—I want us to become the leading clinical journal, and I hope that these changes will help our readers stay abreast of our rapidly changing field and, most important, improve their practice.