Editor’s Page: Changing It Up

Albert Einstein said, “The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.”

Miles Davis said, “It’s not about standing still and becoming safe. If anybody wants to keep creating, they have to be about change.”

And my uncle, Vito “The Rake” Scrimalli, said, “You think smoking is cool? You’re going to smoke this entire [bleeping] pack and then tell me how damn cool you think this disgusting habit is...”

OK that last one is a little off topic — but I promised my mom I’d work V into one of these columns, and I’m a man of my word.

Plus, the tactic worked, and it did permanently alter my perspective on smoking.

Not cool, indeed.

My point is, change is tough. Whether you’re a surgery center adding a new service line (see Jeanine Watson’s column on page 69 for more on this) or a medical trade magazine opting for its first redesign in well over a decade, it’s never easy making big moves.

But it’s often necessary.

The more comfortable you get doing things “the way they’ve always been done,” the harder it becomes to move away from the stale, stagnant and unsatisfyingly safe status quo.

That’s why I was so excited when Ethan Anderson, our one-man art department, first approached me over the summer about a side project he’d been working on.

He said he’d been messing around with some changes to the look of the magazine and wanted to show the rest of the team what he’d been up to.

The editorial team loved the changes he showed us during one of our Monday Morning Meetings, which is our version of those Safety Huddles we hear about so often from readers, and we encouraged him to keep going. (Sidenote: If you want to share how you keep those huddles fresh, just know you always have a platform in this magazine. Just saying.)

Half a year later and fresh off another ball drop, we decided this was the perfect time to unveil Mr. Anderson’s side project to our engaged audience, a group that surely understands how hard it is to make any changes when there’s already too much to do on the daily. Trust me, we took note of how many of you said you were spread too thin in the survey that served as the basis for the cover story (page 20) Senior Editor Joe Paone put together for this issue.

January/February 2025 marks the first issue featuring the new design of the magazine. If you happen to have a few copies of Outpatient Surgery Magazine at your center (and a few minutes to spare!), take a look at the differences.

Describing the changes, Mr. Anderson said he “wanted to update the look, as the previous had been around for over a decade. [I] kept it familiar to OSM’s style. Tried to add more color to the pages and some more points of interest to the pages  — move away from a cookie-cutter layout on the feature articles.”

Personally, I think he succeeded on all counts. To my eye, the magazine looks more sleek, more modern and even a little bit sexy (as much as a publication that features graphic images of people getting their hips and knees ripped open can).

If we wind up losing the “Bar Harbor Brawler” to one of the heavyweights in the industry like “Wired,” “The Atlantic” or the Holy Grail for art directors, “Birds & Bloom Magazine,” then so be it.

It was definitely time to change things up.

Of course, it doesn’t matter what I think. Outpatient Surgery Magazine is you, our readers. On behalf of the entire editorial and operations team, we hope you love the new look as much as we do. OSM