Alan Eshleman, MD MPH, is a board certified internist, medical writer, and editor. His clinical practice is in general internal medicine. He recently retired from the Northern California Kaiser Permanente Medical Group where he divided his time between seeing patients and serving as the Chief Medical Editor for Kaiser’s Internet Services Group. Dr. Eshleman has a special interest in communicating scientific and medical issues to the general public. He has moderated on-line medical discussion groups, and for several years wrote the “Doctor E’s Diary” for SFGate, the online service of the San Francisco Chronicle.