In the past I edited a weekly publication covering world current events. There was no working ahead on that publication; World Newsmap of the Week had to be up to the minute. Medical Laboratory Observer content is very much like that. Working on this month’s issue brought that home to me.
Here is a small but telling illustration: Drs. Kamil Barbour and Jane Cauley, authors of the Continuing Education story on inflammatory markers for osteoporosis, were sent the edited version of their manuscript for their review, as is MLO practice. One sentence in the version that was sent to them read as follows:
“In the United States, the prevalence of osteoporosis is estimated to range from 17% to 20% for women age 50 years or older.”
It came back from the writers like this.
“In the United States, the prevalence of osteoporosis is estimated to range from 17% to 20% for women age 50 years or older, although a more recent report shows a decline in this prevalence of about seven percentage points.”
That is professionalism; that is being immersed in one’s subject. During the week or two between their submission of the manuscript and their receipt of the edited version, Dr. Cauley or Dr. Barbour must have read a new study on the topic—and they incorporated the new knowledge into their piece without missing a beat.
MLO is gratified to have contributors of their caliber to share their expertise with our readers. My larger point, though, is that this magazine covers topics that are always changing. New scientific and technological developments are always coming along—and, often, economic and social developments as well, because clinical laboratory science is not practiced in a vacuum, isolated from national and global affairs.
For another example, I searched for recent studies related to the subject of the other CE story in this issue: HPV. It didn’t take long to find these titles of summaries of such studies, I give them in no particular order; all of them were released this year or last, and there are many more:
“HPV-associated cancer incidence rates point to needed efforts to increase HPV vaccination coverage”
“HPV in older women may be due to reactivation of virus, not new infection”
“New studies shed light on what it cost to vaccinate girls against HPV in low-income countries”
“HPV vaccine completion rate among girls is poor, getting worse”
“Small molecular bodyguards kill HPV-infected cancer cells by protecting tumor-suppressor”
“Cervical disease sufferers could benefit from HPV vaccine”
“HPV shots don’t make girls promiscuous, study says”
“Boston University School of Medicine study finds certain subgroups of black women have lower uptake of HPV vaccination”
“Cervical cancer and pre-cancer cervical growths require single HPV protein”
“Human papillomavirus types do not replace others after large-scale vaccination”
“HPV testing: Indications of a benefit in primary screening”
Clearly, a clinical laboratory professional who wants to keep up to date on HPV has a lot of reading to do. The same is true of virtually every topic we take up in MLO. Those of us who bring you MLO would never claim that we print all there is to know about any topic—but we hope that the magazine provides food for thought and a broad range of useful information, and we welcome all feedback.
