In the late 1990s, our School of Public Health embarked on a series of Bioterrorism Awareness Seminars for health care students and primary care providers, i.e. family practitioners, pediatricians, general internists, nurse clinicians, physician assistants, and others. I struggled with the development of a communications approach that would capture the interest of the audience, especially prior to the events of September 11, 2001. The presentation of information needed to raise a clinician's awareness for the early diagnosis of a bioterrorism incident was considered by many to be esoteric, an unlikely scenario, and not relevant to the daily practice of medicine in the United States.