Remembering R. Craigin Lewis

Remembering R. Craigin Lewis

I hardly knew him; others who worked at Medical Economics magazine in Oradell, NJ, did know him far better than I did. Those who didn’t work with him should be told what a splendid editor he was….

                                                            ***

Quiet, reserved, shy.

Everyone was in awe of Craig Lewis.

He came to my office to say hello the day I was hired…and to say goodbye  the day I left.

I believe he started the wise practice of paying management consultants and other  outside experts to read over & comment on articles ME was publishing. (I wrote an article about doctors going to PRISON for tax evasion, and we sent it to all 5 of the doctors. Only one tried to get the article suppressed—unsuccessfully.)

I wrote one article—and Lewis found significant errors in it. Example: I had written that a physician had served In WW2; Lewis said, based on the figures, it must have been WWI. (Or something like that.) He was right, of course.  But…despite his many justified critical comments on my article, HE WROTE THAT I HAD DONE AN EXCELLENT JOB!

Maybe he was right.

In either case, a classy guy.

Someone told me that at editorial conferences everyone would propose titles for  articles. Then Lewis would come up with a title. And it blew everyone else’s title away.

After he left, to work for a university publication, he sent in a request to continue receiving copies of ME.

Said one editor, “Thank God for that!”