Handbook Helps Doctors

For Puls Medycyny, the Polish medical journal, recent years have seen a lot of changes and dramatic reforms that affect the country's doctors and medical professionals. "It's our role to inform them what's happening on a deep level," says Editor-in-Chief Magda Sowinska. "We provide information on laws, government and regulations, as well as on financing and the business of running a hospital or clinic, among other things. The important part is of course medical news, changes in treatment and new recommendations." Readers range from hospital CEOs to general practitioners, specialists and even entrepreneurs.

In 2008, the journal started a new initiative for doctors: a medical handbook, Medycyna w praktyce. With a comprehensive range of information on treatments and medicine, the handbook was a massive undertaking requiring extensive writing and research. Naturally, it was an expensive undertaking, but the costs were underwritten by advertising, Sowinska says.

"The handbook is for general practitioners who need to know everything, or specialists who are so narrowly focused that they can lack experience with issues outside their normal specialty," says Sowinska.  

Plans are to update it every two years, and the second edition Medycyna w praktyce 2011 was released in late 2010 and already all 2,000 copies printed have made it into doctors' hands - many as a premium for a special subscription campaign for Puls  Medycyny. Sowinska is hoping to print an additional  thousand copies with the help of new ads or a sponsor.

And in the long run, Sowinska would like to see the handbook go digital. "The hope is to have it online eventually," says Sowinska. "That will make it even more useful for doctors."