On p 406, Kieran Gullet explains the current thinking on HIV and AIDS and discusses the hope for future treatments, and on p 425, we give important advice to help protect yourself against HIV infection when on elective. This month, Ann Rosen (p 421) discusses what is causing the increase in heroin misuse and why people misuse drugs at all, and asks what the drug tsar is planning to do about it. We also have a personal view from a general practitioner who has no time for doctors who don't want drug misusers on their lists (p 441), and we publish a study on a project aimed to reduce HIV infection among drug misusers in a Swiss prison (p 414). World Aids Day is on December 1. On p 406, Kieran Gullet explains the current thinking on HIV and AIDS and discusses the hope for future treatments, and on p 425, we give important advice to help protect yourself against HIV infection when on elective. Last month, we ran an article on how complementary treatments could be more effective than conventional treatment in managing back pain. This month, Anne Woodham and Hilary Bower report what lies behind the term "integrated health care" on p 423 and discuss whether a patient benefits from doctors and complementary therapists working together.

Our elective series continues with Brazil, and Surinder Singh and Joe Rosenthal look at the Brazilian health system and the way medical students are trained there (p 427). On a lighter note, as final year students begin to realise their time as undergraduates will be over sooner than they think, Matthew Ridd (p 428) discusses the nuts and bolts of writing a yearbook - the document that will forever preserve your wonderful memories (real or imagined) of life as a medical student.
		Writing a yearbook - p 428

A new degree in medical journalism has been announced (p 404), a sure sign that the media are playing an increasingly important role in disseminating medical knowledge to the "public." Writing for the studentBMJ is a start - keep submitting your articles!