I wrote this book in 1992, and according to the publisher it came about because we got stuck in a lift together. I would like to think that this was not the only reason he took it on. 

 I had recently converted from journalist to trainer. I was meeting many doctors who wanted to write articles for newspapers and magazines, and this book was intended to be a guide on how to go about it.

More specifically, the aims were to:

• introduce health professionals to the market for medical journalism, 
• show them how to choose articles that are likely to be published,
• outline a process for writing those articles,
• guide them on how to deal constructively with their editorsI