In Reply:--I appreciate McLoughlin's generous comments regarding the 1994 Rovenstine Lecture. Obviously, I agree with his suggestions vis a vis renaming the specialty but am less convinced that renaming the Journal would be appropriate. Although "perioperative medicine and pain management" may more precisely define our clinical job description, such a term does not begin to define the breadth of our anesthesia research--especially that concerned with basic science. How, for example, would research involving complex subcellular physiology and biochemistry, molecular genetics, magnetic resonance imaging, or theoretical modeling fit in a journal named "Perioperative Medicine and Pain Management"? Thus, because I agree that the specialty is, to some extent, constrained by its name, I would concentrate on renaming the specialty now and leave the Journal title unchanged until a term better describing the breadth of its contents can be agreed on.
Lawrence J. Saidman, M.D., Editor in Chief
(Accepted for publication August 11, 1995.)
