Highlights from the January 6th issue of CMAJ, presented by Dr. John Fletcher, editor-in-chief, and Dr. Moneeza Walji, editorial fellow. In this issue: diversity of ethnic groups and socioeconomic barriers in medical education, testing for group A streptococcal infection in children, harms from amoxicillin, world region-specific birth-weight curves, drug interactions in HIV-infected patients, syncope, case of recurrent rheumatic fever, venous thromboembolism in IBD, and more. Full issue table of contents: http://www.cmaj.ca/content/187/1.toc