Sometimes pivotal moments happen invisibly and only reveal themselves for their significance in hindsight. In 2016, I committed to serving the Society of General Internal Medicine as associate editor of SGIM Forum. At that time, the more visible pivotal moment was my decision to leave American health care.¹ I felt that I had a lot to experience and reflect about as I embarked on a journey abroad—and SGIM Forum offered me a welcoming professional space to share. This was my first step into a routine of scholarly writing, editing, and publishing, especially since my last editorial post was Features section editor of my high school newspaper!² 

The invisible pivotal moment of deciding to serve as an associate editor, and then publishing work in SGIM Forum with highly supportive editors-in-chief, such as Joe Conigliaro and Karen Horowitz, eventually led to my becoming editor-in-chief. Handed off squarely in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, the newsletter came to me at a time when so many had so much to feel, think, and say. I am endlessly grateful for authors and artists sharing their work over the past three years, including commentary, calls to action, morning reports, preliminary research, art, photography, poetry, and so much more. The previously invisible became brilliantly visible when I was forced to make another pivotal decision³—serving as SGIM Forum editor-in-chief showed me that a career as a publisher is possible, especially during a time in my life when other options seemed to fade. Simply, I realized that I deeply wanted to keep helping scholars to communicate and publish their best work for any and all of the reasons that they might have something important to say. 

Service as SGIM Forum Editor-in-Chief impacted my journey. I hope for readers and members, you will find ways for this humble newsletter to impact yours. Thank you for allowing me to become editor-in-chief.