It has been my signal professional honor to serve as the Editor of the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics since 2003. For nearly fifteen years my co-editors and I have viewed ourselves as caretakers and stewards of a publication that has roots stretching back more than four decades. The last ten years of that stewardship has been shared with my friend and fellow editor Courtney McClellan, and together we work every day to ensure the journal meets the high standards set by our many predecessors. However, we can't do it alone. No relationship is more important to us in meeting these lofty goals than our vitally important partnership with our Editor-in-Chief (EIC).
JLME's EIC sets the standard for the journal: what questions we should ask, what form those questions should take, and how we should present the answers we find. The EIC is also intimately involved in all of the larger questions about the journal, from its business model to its very look and feel. As editor I have been blessed by a string of outstanding EICs, including Kathleen Boozang, Sandra Johnson, and Anna Iltis. They, in turn, followed such notable scholars as Larry Gostin, Steven Miles, Karen Rothenberg, Ellen Wright Clayton, and Bernard Lo. The first EIC of JLME (then under a different title) was the great George Annas, who is featured in this current issue. One of the longest-serving EICs in our publication's history is also our most recent one, Kevin Outterson, who has served with great distinction since 2009. Kevin led JLME during a critical time of success, when the publication exploded in terms of readers, downloads, and revenue earned. I want to thank Kevin publically for his wonderful service, and note with relief he is still with us at ASLME: he is currently serving as our organization's President.
With tremendous pleasure, I now introduce our new Editor-in-Chief Aaron S. Kesselheim, M.D., J.D., M.P.H. Aaron is an influential scholar whose work has addressed a number of topics, including FDA regulatory practices, prescription drugs and medical devices, and intellectual property. He has been published many times in JLME and has a history of service to ASLME both as a member on our Board of Directors and in co-chairing (with David Orentlicher) our 2011 conference on Conflicts of Interest in Medicine in Pittsburgh. Aaron is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a faculty member in the Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics in the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH). Within the Division, Aaron created and leads the Program on Regulation, Therapeutics, And Law (PORTAL), an interdisciplinary research core focusing on intersections among prescription drugs and medical devices, patient health outcomes, and regulatory practices and the law. He is Board Certified in Internal Medicine, and serves as a primary care physician at the Phyllis Jen Center for Primary Care at BWH. He is a also member of the New York State Bar and a Patent Attorney. I hope you all will join me in welcoming Aaron to the masthead of JLME, as the next in the long line of distinguished scholars leading our esteemed publication.
