Kathy Stern: Graphic Arts Director for the New England Journal of Medicine

Abstract

Kathy Stern, the Graphic Arts Director at the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), is familiar with the adage “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Over her 29-year career with the NEJM, Kathy has drawn and overseen countless images telling myriad stories and has thus contributed millions of “words” to the information shared with NEJM readers. Images range from in-house illustrations drawn by medical illustrators, to line art graphs, photographs submitted by physician-authors, still images captured from videos created in-house, interactive online elements, and more. In this interview, Kathy discusses how she started in the production department back in the days of paste-up layout and now oversees a department of more than 20 employees working with state-of-the-art digital tools. Science Editor: How did you get started with your career at the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM)? Kathy Stern: I started out working in a production facility that wasn’t even part of the editorial office. We communicated with a production coordinator in Boston (where the NEJM editorial offices are located) who worked directly with the editors. NEJM was one of several products that the production facility of the Massachusetts Medical Society served, but it was, by far, the biggest product. It was a massive amount of detail work. Everything was done with manual layout with precision cutting knives, acetate, and wax. We would create 14 different proofs that went out to 14 different people. Our main focus was the level of detail; everything had to be exactly right. If […]