The BMJ is evolving, and with this first issue of 2006 you will see some changes. The most obvious of these are some new section headings, but wider changes are afoot which will culminate in a redesign of the journal in July.

The changes stem from a series of conversations we have had with doctors, healthcare researchers, and policy makers in the UK and overseas. These have told us a lot about how people use information and what they look for in the BMJ. They confirmed what we know to be the BMJ's strengths—broad appeal across medicine and health care, reputation for courage and integrity, mix of serious science and analysis with practically useful material, readability, hard hitting journalism, and entertaining comment. But they also told us that readers are confused about what the BMJ is and who it is for. Is it mainly for general practitioners (the hospital doctors thought so) or mainly for hospital doctors (as the general practitioners thought)? Is it about clinical medicine or public health? And is it a journal or a magazine?

Confusion is not necessarily a bad thing. It is often the springboard to …