-S^. Editor's Column *ff With this issue of Literature and Medicine, I have the privilege of thanking Anne Hudson Jones for the outstanding work she has done as general editor for the past ten years. She has played an important role in shaping the field of literature and medicine not only with her own scholarship but also by working closely with countless contributors . For many of us, myself included, Anne was one of our first editors, and her careful guidance and thoughtful questions have set an example of wisdom and generosity for all her successors to follow. For all of Anne's contribution to our field, however, her own voice has been noticeably absent from the pages of this journal except in the editor's columns. I am especially pleased, therefore, to open this issue of Literature and Medicine with Anne Hudson Jones's own voice and to welcome her as she moves from behind the scenes to front stage. But her article, "Reading Patients: Cautions and Concerns," is important to Literature and Medicine for other reasons as well. First, it heralds the creation of a new column, the Special Feature, which shall appear in the journal as the opportunity presents itself. Second, the occasion marked by this special feature is the inauguration of an annual lectureship and forum in literature and medicine at the Brown University School of Medicine—the first such endowment of its kind and a landmark for our field. The journal is proud to print the first of these lectures that honor Harriet Waltzer Sheridan for her contribution to literature and medicine. Finally, Jones's article introduces several important themes that run, implicitly or explicitly, through most of the essays in this issue. In fact, if I were to title this editor's column, I would borrow from her lecture and call it "Cautionary Readings," as the articles I introduce, taken together, ask us to consider the opportunities and pitfalls that stories offer to literature and medicine. Jones addresses a wide audience , primarily from medicine and many of them unfamiliar with literature and medicine. She chronicles the field as it has grown from the study and teaching of creative literature to examine the spoken stories of patients as well. Jones notes the metaphors and theories that speak of physicians "reading" these stories and then retelling or "rewriting " them as part of the processes of medical practice, and she cautions that such reading and rewriting is an interpretive activity that Literature and Medicine 13, no. 2 (Fall 1994) vii-xii © 1994 by The Johns Hopkins University Press EDITOR'S COLUMN runs the danger of appropriating and recasting patients' accounts in physicians' own words. Her concern is for physicians to remain open to patients' stories and take special responsibility for creating a relationship that permits dialogue among physicians, patients, and other health professionals. We are fortunate to have received permission to reprint the four poems that concluded Jones's address. These poems underline her argument that listening in an open, receptive pose rather than reading in a way that might misrepresent or misinterpret others' stories is the more ethical stance for the physician. Jones's argument is carried a step further by John Wiltshire in "Beyond the Ouija Board: Dialogue and Heteroglossia in the Medical Narrative." Like Jones, Wiltshire is skeptical of most physicians' ability to represent their patients' experiences faithfully. Both Jones and Wiltshire refer to an article by Nancy M. P. King and Ann Folwell Stanford, which appeared in an earlier issue of Literature and Medicine. They pick up on the article's use of the literary term dialogism, which refers to the ability of fiction to represent the language and world views of many, disparate groups of people. For Wiltshire, the most authentically dialogical stories are published accounts by patients or caregivers that reproduce health professionals' language, chart entries, correspondence, and lab reports as well as the authors' own words. He argues, though, that attending to the unique voice of patients may be even more difficult than Jones or King and Stanford suggest, that dialogism demands an even greater autonomy for the patient's voice than the shared dialogue that the others describe. Taken...