Physicians face the daunting task of providing the most scientifically advanced care to their patients while maintaining a professional, humanistic touch. While most medical journals strive to provide the knowledge and science for the practice of medicine, we hope to address the humanistic aspects of patient care in this section of Journal of General Internal Medicine (JGIM).

Experiences in health care, from the perspectives of doctors, other health care providers, patients, and family members elicit an emotional response sometimes ignored or left by the wayside for lack of time, focus, or audience. It is only with purposeful effort that these experiences are described and shared. Stopping to write or to read about them, we hope, will provide the JGIM readership a moment to pause and contemplate both the mundane and unusual moments that we all participate in daily while practicing medicine.

We seek essays and poetry from providers, patients, patient family members, or others relating to experiences with health care, illness, or the medical training process. Submitted essays should have a maximum length of 2,000 words and poems a maximum length of 80 lines. As the newly designated co-editors of Reflections, we look forward to the opportunity to review your submissions soon.