by Gerald D. Klee, MD
[Spring 1999; Vol.26 No. 1]
I will step down as Editor following this issue of The Maryland Psychiatrist (TMP). Extensive travel planned for the coming year will prevent me from giving the necessary time. A new editor has not yet been named. During the two years I have been editor, TMP has continued to improve. This has been due to the efforts of many MPS members, especially those serving on the editorial board (which includes three past editors). Mostly unseen by the readers have been the changes in the production of TMP, as we went from the horse and buggy days of typewriters, mail, faxes and telephones to more efficient electronic methods. Email is faster and cheaper than the old methods, and doing the layout on desktop publishing saves time and money. Carol Watkins MD has been the leading figure in our electronic transformation. You have read her articles about information technology in TMP. Behind the scenes, she has guided us into the information age, patiently helping technologically challenged people like me to learn the basics. Beginning with the Fall 1998 issue she did the layout on desktop publishing (at her own expense). Starting with this issue, Jennifer Gajewski, Assistant Executive Director of the MPS will do the layout for this publication. Prior to that we paid to have it done outside the MPS. There isn't enough space to list all of the others who have done so much to improve TMP.
In this issue we are proud to have as our lead article, a review of a two-day symposium honoring Paul McHugh, MD, Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins. Dr. McHugh's distinguished career embodies the continued fulfillment of principles expressed by Adolph Meyer, as follows: "There is no field so much in need of a firm anchoring in specific concrete works as psychiatry, but also no field so much in need of a broad grasp with plastic principles, which guarantee an open mind and yet firmness and decision of action and of interests." (1)
(1) The Commonsense Psychiatry of Dr. Adolph Meyer, Lief, (page 349)