Pulse ça change

Editor Jaimie Kaffash on the bittersweet experience of putting Pulse‘s final ever print issue to press

I don’t like to be too navel gazing, but for this editorial, please allow me some self indulgence. Because after 64 years, last week we put Pulse’s final ever print issue to press. It was a bittersweet moment. On the one hand, our online offering is thriving (as you know from being on this site), we are breaking stories quicker than ever and we know that digital formats are more convenient for the vast majority of readers. But it is true that there is something special about a print magazine. I’m hoping our last ever issue, which will be landing on your desks over the next few days, will be extra special.  

I won’t go into too much detail about what is in the issue. We have some exciting features, some trips down memory lane and gazing into the future. But most of all, it looks fantastic (and I have my art director James to thank for that). We have gone back to a broadsheet format, which is how Pulse was published for the majority of its time in print, and we have mimicked the style from our very first issue in 1960. Make sure you get your hands on one.

For many readers, the loss of print will be upsetting – or, if that is too strong a word, a mild disappointment. We are one of the last titles of our kind to go fully digital and our print magazine was something I felt proud of. Like many readers, I love a print magazine, and as an editor, to hold the finished product in your hands is wonderful.

But don’t be too disheartened. Because over the next month on PulseToday, we will be reflecting the transition from print to online and showcasing exactly what you can expect from a fully digital Pulse.  We are taking everything from our print issue and expanding on it, in a way that adds to the print features.

We will be looking at the past, present and future of general practice and Pulse, at the major stories and clinical developments of the past, what we can expect the profession to be like in 2044, and the current state of general practice (including a special column from someone I called ‘Britain’s greatest satirist’, although he asked for that title to be changed).

I’m lucky enough to love my job, and part of this is dealing with GPs, who are almost invariably smart, opinionated and principled. I hope that our final issue and our Pulse in Print series will reflect these traits, and that you have as much passion reading this as we had compiling it.

And while Pulse print may be no more, Pulse itself will continue to fight the corner for general practice as long as GPs continue to exist, just as we have done for 64 years.

Jaimie Kaffash is editor of Pulse. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @jkaffash or email him at editor@pulsetoday.co.uk