Saying what you mean and meaning what you say: coupling biomedical terminology and knowledge.

Rogers • Editorial T mission statement published in the very first issue of JAOA—The Journal of the American Osteopathic Association was simple: “to serve as a medium for the dissemination of information concerning the work of the Association, and of communication between its widely separated members.”1 To say the least, THE JOURNAL and its mission have evolved considerably since 1901. In recent months, the AOA’s editor in chief, the JAOA’s two associate editors, and the members of the JAOA Editorial Advisory Board assumed the task of revising the JAOA’s mission statement to improve its relevance. We also drafted a set of goals to support the new mission statement. The challenge of writing a mission statement is to express clearly what you mean in words that are both passionate and concise. In addition, the goals of any publication must describe the steps needed to fulfill the mission as stated— again in a concise manner. Although it sounds simple enough, the process presents some barriers. To create an effective mission statement, most groups need to set time aside—usually at a board retreat. Because it can be a time-consuming process to reach sufficient clarity of thought to accomplish this task, some of the group’s members may resist taking the first step. In addition, some members may be skeptical about the process: Will anyone read our mission statement? Will it make a difference? The JAOA’s mission and goals were generated the way things are often done nowadays—by conference calls and emails. We may have lost some of the benefit of the immediacy of meeting faceto-face, but we got the job done. The JAOA’s new mission is “to advance medicine through the timely publication of peer-reviewed osteopathic medical research.” The goals that accompany the mission statement then describe the JAOA, express our ambitions, and define our target audiences (Figure). Drafting a mission statement also needs to be approached within the context of the organization. In the case of the JAOA, the umbrella organization is the AOA. That umbrella can also be extended to include the 25 colleges of osteopathic medicine (COMs) and their three branch campuses. The pillars of these institutions are, arguably, the following: