It is equally important for us to remain active in health policy, disease prevention and control, and other macroscopic approaches to current medical problems. The environment of uncertainty surrounding universal healthcare coverage in the United States, increasing restrictions on manpower mobility in Canada, and other important issues that impact the future of medicine are of vital concern to students everywhere. We cannot afford to simply learn or practice medicine in an intellectual vacuum. A journal would facilitate discussions regarding important medical issues and nurture student participation in both micro- and macroscopic endeavors that could potentially lead to beneficial outcomes in the medical community. For these reasons, I was inspired by the idea of starting a new student medical journal.
Ideas inspire people to move in surprising new directions.
Without knowing it, my colleagues and I were about to enrich our medical studies by embarking on the exciting enterprise of creating a new journal from scratch. In May 1994, I submitted a proposal elaborating the idea of a new medical journal for students to the Deans at the McGill Faculty of Medicine. They officially approved our organization approximately two weeks later. The MJM is an independent organization run entirely by students at McGill University. Since the first general meeting in which 17 people in my class attended, our editorial board has grown to include the 52 students listed in the masthead on the inside front cover of this journal.