AJP 'Readers' Have Options for Learning the Latest

Have you noticed? The American Journal of Psychiatry (AJP) has grown beyond its hard-copy format born 166 years ago. In recent years it has been plumbing the dynamic field of electronic communications to identify ever more creative ways to reach and increase its audience.

The most visible is AJP in Advance, which debuted two years ago. The bimonthly advance edition of the hard-copy monthly journal gives subscribers an early look at cutting-edge research making it competitive with weekly and biweekly medical publications. But before AJP in Advance, there were two other innovative initiatives that debuted with little fanfare: its AJP Audio and Residents' Journal.

AJP Audio

AJP Audio was launched about three years ago as an alternative format to AJP's hard-copy monthly to attract new readers, especially busy ones on the go. The audiocasts, roughly 30 minutes long, highlight the contents of each month's AJP. Audiocasts going back to April 2006 can be accessed online at no charge. Susan Schultz, M.D., a psychiatrist in Iowa City, Iowa, is one of five deputy editors of AJP and one of the two voices listeners hear on the audiocasts. The other voice belongs to Michael Roy, editorial director of AJP.

“I've been listening to AJP Audio Podcasts now for a few months and want to let you know what a great resource this is” is how APA member Charles Peters, M.D., of Towson, Md., put it about a year ago in an unpublished letter. “Journals have piled up on my desk for years, and I rarely got through them in a timely way. Now I download a Podcast, take my iPod with me when I run or walk, and enjoy getting through each month's issue.”

Today, nothing has changed Peters's sentiments: “That's very much how I feel about it a year later,” he said in an interview.

“Every month we publish articles that can influence how clinicians practice so we want to make our articles as accessible as possible,” Schultz said. The audiocasts “help us to make our articles available in a way that is user friendly for the busy clinician.”

She and Roy read the scripts in professional sound studios. Roy said professional editing helps create the flawless presentation that listeners hear. Once completed, the recordings are saved in MP3 format, an audio compression structure widely used on the Internet, and uploaded onto AJP's homepage.

“Because we use 'in-house' writing and voice talent, and because of their familiarity and enthusiasm for the material, costs to produce are minimal,” Roy said—“just nominal costs to book the studio and for the sound engineer's editing time.”

Jane Weaver, a senior AJP editor and feature writer, creates the scripts. “I have written most of them, but Susan Schultz wrote the first two [scripts].” Weaver said in an interview. “It's a large task. We cover many articles and modify the writing for an audio presentation.”

A cross-section of topics from each month's AJP is highlighted in each script. “It takes some time to boil the articles down to a few paragraphs,” Weaver said. “You have to decide what is essential ... [and] use short, simple sentences and not too many 'esses.'”

Roy said it's hard to know exactly how many listeners have been drawn to AJP Audio over the years. But “from usage statistics and other reports, we estimate that several thousand people listen to at least a few minutes of the program each month.”

Residents' Journal

The Residents' Journal, which last year became a joint initiative of AJP and APA's Committee of Residents and Fellows, was also born three years ago, with an updated design unveiled in January. Molly McVoy, M.D., chief psychiatry resident at University Hospitals and Case Western Reserve School of Medicine in Cleveland, is the Residents' Journal's editor in chief.

Organizationally, the journal has two aspects to it: an e-mailed portion that's sent to residents and the online portion that can be accessed online directly. The e-mail highlights two articles for discussion from the current AJP and includes links to the table of contents of the current AJP and to AJP Audio.

“Every article in the Residents' Journal is written by a resident [and] each month has a resident [issue] editor who is responsible for all of the journal's content,” McVoy told Psychiatric News.

The online publication typically contains from five to 10 page views of content, she noted, and the topics covered are wide ranging. “Recent issues have covered everything from the psychiatric aspects of weight loss to leadership development to medical anthropology.”

Angela Moore, AJP's staff editor of the Residents' Journal, reports the circulation of the journal to be about 2,000 residents.

“The publication has evolved in both appearance and content,” Moore told Psychiatric News. “Many of the articles are now more scholarly, and the new layout and design of the issues are more sophisticated and attractive, with graphics as well as modern navigation tools for online viewing.”

Steve Hennessey, AJP's graphic designer, created the updated look of the journal. He recounted that in redesigning it, he and AJP staff looked to improve its readability and in-document navigation and to include more direct links to out-of-document resources.

“This was accomplished,” he said, “by reorganizing and reformatting elements of the newsletter to create a more professional page-based layout that incorporates more inviting aesthetics.”

Each article can be accessed by clicking on it from the online cover. And there are other useful resources that are accessible from within the pages of the articles.

'Visionary' at Helm of AJP

Of course, AJP Audio and the Residents' Journal hardly just materialized. Ask anyone at AJP what or who is the impetus for these projects and they all agree. They say AJP Editor-in-Chief Robert Freedman, M.D., is the visionary force behind AJP Audio, Residents' Journal, and AJP in Advance.

“Under Dr. Freedman's editorship, the Journal has been enjoying a resurgence,” Roy commented. “We have always been proud of our publication's long, rich history, but it's also very exciting that with Dr. Freedman's ideas and energy, this venerable publication continues to play an integral role in defining the future of the field, both in what we publish and how we disseminate it.”

For his part, Freedman credits the AJP staff and its APA member editors for the high quality and scope of AJP Audio and Residents' Journal.

“I appreciate the way Susan Schultz and Michael Roy can make our content as easy to hear and understand as an NPR radio program,” Freedman told Psychiatric News. “Residents helped initiate the Residents' Journal to direct them to the parts of the American Journal of Psychiatry that are of most interest to them. Under Molly McVoy's leadership, resident editors and authors have now expanded it to address issues that are important in their training.”

Freedman, meanwhile, is already thinking about what's next in the evolution of the Residents' Journal: “We hope,” he said,“ that residents will attend the focus group [see Original article: Got an Opinion?] that the Committee of Residents and Fellows cosponsors with us at the APA annual meeting to consider what should be in the Residents' Journal in the future.”

Listen Up!

Access to AJP audio is free. Here's how to get connected:

Also, AJP in Advance is accessible at<http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org>, and the Residents' Journal at<http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/misc/Residents_Journal.dtl>.▪