During my term as Editor of Sacramento Medicine (renamed Sierra Sacramento Valley Medicine (SSVM)), I had the good fortune of becoming acquainted with Jim Coyle, MD, and working with him on the Journal.   Jim was an internist of long standing in our community.  In fact my office is located on Coyle Ave, named after his father, also a physician.

About that same time I noted that many of the county medical societies around the state were sending copies of their journals and bulletins to our society. As these were discarded, I requested that they be tossed my way. Since they contained more useful information than I could possibly use in my "Hippocrates and His Kin" commentary, I asked Jim if he would like to help peruse them and consider writing a column based on these "Other Voices" from around the state. Jim's column, which ran from April 95 through May 98, developed a richly deserved loyal readership. He became a valuable resource for the editorial board of this journal--his writing was inspiring and insightful.

After Jim's untimely death on April 15, 1998, I resumed the perusal of these journals and realized that there was a wealth a material and ideas that was only available to the limited membership of the various societies around the state. In addition, I found journals from beyond the state and country that speak to issues that are of interest to Californians. Thus in memory of Jim and as a tribute to his fine work, I continued the column, reviewing what other physicians around the state were writing. Since I was no longer writing a monthly editorial, I had the time to bring this pertinent information about medicine from our colleagues around the state and nation to our readership. I will be posting these tidbits of information and brief editorial comments from our colleagues around the world for this electronic journal. Because of space restraints, shorter versions of these articles have been published in Sacramento Medicine and SSVM. I hope you will join me in exploring these VOICES of MEDICINE. Perhaps nothing new - but in a different voice to pique your interest.

During 1997, I was writing a companion column to Dr Coyle's VOM called YESTERYEAR, a review of our written history starting in 1950. We hope you will also enjoy these Voices of Medicine from the past.