Editorial Process

The Prescriber's Letter research and editorial staff uses an exhaustive editorial process that has been refined over 20 years. Over the years, thousands of clinicians have commented on the value of Prescriber's Letter. Our editorial staff truly gets down to the bottom of each subject, and offers practical and useful information. They understand each topic so well they can explain it clearly.

A quote by Albert Einstein hangs framed in the editorial staff's conference room.

If you can't explain it simply,
You don't understand it well enough.
     - Albert Einstein

For this reason, we study all the available information on each topic, and discuss it with many experts. When we are ready to write, we understand the topic inside and out and that makes it easier to explain it clearly. All the research allows us to provide practical recommendations.

Topic Identification
Topic ideas come from staff members as well as clinicians. Subscribers are always invited to ask questions. The thousands of questions from subscribers that come into our editorial staff guide the research and topic identification. Subscribers often ask why Prescriber's Letter is so timely and on-target. The answer is simple. Many thousands of subscribers constantly tell us what information they need, and that becomes the information that is in the Letter. Once a topic is identified as potentially good for research and publication, it is added to the "Topic List." At that point, initial literature research is done. At any given moment there are approximately 350 topics on the pending "Topic List."

Topic Selection
A group of full-time editors, together with members of the Topic Selection Panel, consider all the topics on the "Topic List" and select the 35 most appropriate topics.

Preliminary Research
The editors begin working on these 35 topics. Preliminary literature research is conducted and primary literature is studied. Each topic is assigned to an editor who leads the research and writing for that topic.

First Draft
Each editor begins by identifying the information that subscribers will need to know on each given topic. This is an interesting step and differentiates Prescriber's Letter from other publications. The editors are not guided to write about information that exists, they are guided to write the information that subscribers want to know about. This often requires considerably more research, and many conversations with clinicians and experts. The editors, working on each of their topics, come together as a group to discuss each other's topics and give each other critiques and recommendations on these articles in their embryonic stages.

Editorial Advisory Board Input
The 35 articles from the editors are pulled together into one document. The draft document is sent to 23 persons who comprise the Editorial Advisory Board. Board members are pharmacists or physicians who meet face-to-face as a group once each month. During the meeting, the Board discusses each topic and each draft article.

Article Development
Following the Editorial Advisory Board meeting, the editors, working in committee, make further "cuts" and select approximately 24 topics to move forward. Topics are evaluated for their appropriateness for providing valuable education to clinicians.

Article and Detail-Document Development
At this point, an additional researcher/writer is identified and assigned to each topic and Detail-Document. More details are discovered and the working team decides which information will go into each draft article, and if the information will appear in the article or the Detail-Document. Every article that appears in the Letter is associated with a much longer document that is written by our editorial team. These longer documents are called Detail-Documents and provide additional depth of information and recommendations on the given subject.

Editorial Conference Call
The draft along with extensive background reading material is provided to the group of persons who analyze the draft articles for scientific accuracy. Participants of this group are practicing physicians, drug information pharmacists, and practicing pharmacists. This group, along with the writers, participates in a conference call to discuss every statement and to assure its accuracy.

Drug Information Review
Detail-Document writers and editors read and compare each draft article and each Detail-Document to double check all facts.

Fact Checking
Every draft article is reviewed by a variety of experts to give the editors additional insights and to double check each fact. The editors select from approximately 400 members of the Pharmacist's Letter/Prescriber's Letter Consultants Panel. Member of the Consultant Panel have been identified over many years as experts in a given topic who are willing help the editors refine draft articles and assure accuracy. Additionally each draft article is reviewed by persons such as the principle investigators of cited studies, FDA or CDC authorities, medical experts at drug companies, health associations, etc.

Second Editorial Conference Call
A second editorial conference call seeks to make further refinements and assures scientific accuracy. Participants on this call are physicians and pharmacists. The group considers each draft and determines whether the article accurately reflects the evidence-based literature and is consistent with the best and most current thinking on the topic.

CE Pilot-Testers
At this point, the CE materials have already been written and need to be pilot-tested. A cross-section of clinicians and other subscribers pilot test the CE. The input from the CE pilot testers helps refine the continuing education component as well as the underlying articles and Detail-Documents.

Peer-Review Panel
The draft of the final Letter is starting to take shape and it is shared with members of the Peer-Review Panel. Each Peer-Review Panelist is invited to review and comment on each article. Unlike other Peer-Review processes in which each peer reviewers comments are kept confidential, each member of our Peer-Review Panel can get the comments from every other Peer-Reviewer. This creates a dynamic opportunity for feedback and provides the editors with excellent input to make further refinements to each article.

Editorial Team Editing
At the end of the cycle, editors take into account all of the exhaustive research, review, and refinement, and make any needed improvements to the drafts. This process requires an intense three days during which many refinements are made. Articles, Detail-Documents, CE materials, and reference citations are all considered and finalized. Not all of the articles are publishing in the monthly printed Letter. This editorial process produces more articles than can fit in the printed Letter. But, the additional articles and additional Detail-Documents are posted online so that subscribers can get them from the website, and on their PDA. A five-page editorial checklist helps guide the activities of the group and assures an extremely high-quality final product.

It is extremely hard to write the monthly newsletter that packs so much punch in to so few words. Every word and every sentence has to convey the exact right implication and meaning. The exhaustive editorial process gives subscribers completely independent, highly accurate facts and recommendations on a very large number of topics. Being able to provide this information in such a concise manner requires a tremendous number of people, and lots of work. It would be easier for us to write a 50-page newsletter than a 6-page newsletter. This is not an exaggeration. Most other publications would require well over 50 pages to cover all the topics in one issue of Prescriber's Letter and would require far fewer editors to do so. Mark Twain said it best:

I would have written you a shorter letter,
But I didn't have enough time.
     - Mark Twain

The Prescriber's Letter staff agrees with Mark Twain. It takes a lot of time and effort to effectively concentrate a large amount of learning into a short concise space. Prescriber's Letter packs a lot of learning into each issue.