Everyone agrees: this little pamphlet can be read in a few minutes, but it can save someone years of grief.

After many years as a campus physician, I wrote it to counter the usual “safer sex” message, which leaves students dangerously misinformed. My goal here was to provide a young woman with critical information about her sexual health that she wouldn’t hear anywhere else.

Judging from the response, I succeeded. There’s lots of enthusiasm for S&S, as it’s come to be known. Most of all, people love the no-nonsense content. They like that it’s concise, easy to read, and that it fits easily into a purse or backpack.

Although originally designed for college students, the facts in S&S are essential knowledge for younger girls, too. I’ve been impressed with the ways parents have devised to get the booklet into the hands of teens. One mother, a physician, arranged for it to be given to all the girls in her daughter’s class. Another gave it, along with my book Unprotected, to a group of girls before they left for college.