The subject that is featured in this month's cover story, beginning on page 429, is an important one to all medical technology professionals. A small number of readers know it's important because they have been called upon to present facts at a deposition related to their medical equipment management activities. The rest of us may not yet realize how important it is because we have only heard about people being called to testify. In fact, the majority of us may never actually have that experience. But if you do, you'll be glad you read the article and prepared yourself for such an event.Many past issues of BI&T have encouraged us to develop relations with the IT people, hospital administrators, clinical managers, facilities planners, and others. This month's cover story talks specifically about the importance of your working relationship with the hospital's risk manager. As clinical engineering professionals, we have much to offer our organizations as systems thinkers, technology specialists, and information managers. In this role, we also create policies and procedures to run our departments and we manage the risks associated with medical equipment maintenance. Keeping the hospital's risk manager involved will ensure we are not working in a vacuum and that what we produce is part of the facility's total risk management program.Knowing this, you should take the opportunity ahead of time to put thing in order and build that relationship. Work with the risk manager on the review of your recall and alerts management program. Suggest changes to the process that is used to respond to medical device incidents and accidents. Share risks presented by the installation of new devices and point out changes in risk associated with changes in the management program such as funding cuts. And by all means, freely forward to them interesting articles that you may run across related to reducing the organization's risk when medical device accidents occur (like the article in this issue). As one of the subheadings in the feature article says, “Be Prepared.” Then, should you be asked to give a deposition, having good policies, complete documentation, the right toolkit, and, most importantly, the right relationships in place, will make all the difference in whether you experience a rough ride or a smooth sail.