The most heavily thumbed publication in a typical hospital mess is the classified advertisement supplement of the British Medical Journal. Wishful thinking often takes readers straight to the back – for promises of sun and fun in foreign climes – or to the front for other forms of escape. It was there, at the front, that I spotted an intriguing invitation to try medical journalism for a while. Within a few weeks I had finished my psychiatry rotation and started at the BMJ as an editorial registrar, wondering what on earth I had done.