From the Editor's Desk

In this general medical topics issue, we present a diverse and interesting selection of contributions. We start with 3 editorials, the first by one of our senior distinguished surgeons, Dr John Ochsner, who continues the previous discussion on the importance of mentors. Next we have a description of Ochsner Health System's transition to ICD-10, and we complete this section with Dr Bill Richardson's explanation of his Boston family's New Orleans connection.

Our quarterly columns include Dr Indranill Basu Ray's presentation on evidence-based practice, followed by Dr Sean Roberts's discussion of ethical issues related to end-stage renal disease. This section concludes with a discussion of an actively rupturing intracranial aneurysm in the Clinical Images column by Drs Ava Star and James Milburn.

The original research section contains 5 articles that span a diverse range of research activities. The review and commentary section contains 5 articles on important drugs, postoperative management, and the increasingly important area of decision support. Our final section includes a number of interesting case reports.

We conclude with a letter to the editor and a list of recent publications by Ochsner authors. The editorial board thanks our reviewers and contributors for their efforts and hopes our readers continue to find their submissions useful and interesting.