Medical Journal of Australia
The Medical Journal of Australia (1982-1983)
Alan Blum, MD, graduated from Emory University School of Medicine in 1975. After serving an internship in internal medicine at the Royal Victoria Hospital of McGill University, he completed a family medicine residency and teaching fellowship at Jackson Memorial Hospital of the University of Miami in 1979. During his residency and fellowship, he hosted a weekly 3-hour call-in medical radio program, “The Doctor Show” on WNWS, for which he also recorded over 300 2-minute medical commentaries, and served as the health reporter for WTVJ-TV. In 1978 and 1979, Blum’s radio talk show and TV and radio commentaries received top honors in the American Medical Association National Physician Speakers Competition. In 1979-80 Blum served as the Morris Fishbein Fellow in Medical Journalism at the Journal of the American Medical Association. In October 1981, while serving on the family medicine faculty at Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, Illinois, Blum was named editor of the Medical Journal of Australia (MJA), effective January 1, 1982. His focus on preventive medicine, culminating in the publication on March 5, 1983 of the first theme issue on smoking at any journal in the world, brought increased attention to the MJA. That issue was also the first to go into a second printing in the 69-year history of the journal.