番茄社区app launched on March 14, 2005 and in the years since then my byline has appeared here on several thousand articles and columns. This is the final one, as I will be leaving 番茄社区app next month.
It is not my final byline ever since I will still be reporting, writing, and editing. I just will not be doing it under the 番茄社区app banner, which is really a terrific banner. There have been countless adventures over the years since 番茄社区app went live, but 2 years ago the staff put together this and it still makes me smile. I hope it makes you smile, too.
A few years ago, 番茄社区app published an op-ed piece from a physician who was a somewhat regular contributor. The piece was highly critical of an FDA decision to approve a drug that the writer claimed was going to carry an exorbitant price tag and offer questionable efficacy. But it turned out that the physician had gotten some bad information so his criticisms were without foundation. That error was pointed out by the drugmaker, who tried to contact me for a correction.
The company had also contacted upper management at MedPage Today's corporate owner. Whenever a problem arose with the site, that upper management would contact me, but they couldn't on this occasion because I was on an airplane.
When I landed and turned on my phone, I was assaulted by numerous buzzes and beeps indicating a series of emails, voice mails, and texts. I knew of the problem by the time I reached the end of the concourse and soon I was able to work with the 番茄社区app staff to fix it.
But about 2 weeks later when I was at a company meeting in Philadelphia, our general manager said he wanted to talk to me about that particular incident. His concern, he said, was that there was no clear contingency plan in place to handle such issues when I was not reachable. He put it this way: "What if the plane you were on would have crashed? How would this problem have been addressed then?"
I like to think that if the plane had crashed, some other issues would have taken precedence over the "fix" needed on a 番茄社区app article, but he made his point.
As a result, we initiated a contingency plan and tried to reinforce a fail-safe checking system as well as redundancy for decision-making. The net result? 番茄社区app continues even when a key person, any key person -- is not available.
This is all by way of telling you -- the 番茄社区app user -- that it will still be business as usual at Medpagetoday.com without Peggy Peck.