Each year, ACEP’s Council elects new leaders for the College at its meeting. The Council, which represents all 53 chapters, 40 sections of membership, the Association of Academic Chairs of Emergency Medicine, the Council of Emergency Medicine Residency Directors, the Emergency Medicine Residents’ Association, and the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine, will elect four members to the ACEP Board of Directors when it meets in October, along with a new President-elect.

Candidates for ACEP Board of Directors responded to this prompt:

What skills, background, knowledge, or unique abilities will you bring to the Board that may be currently missing?

Torree M. McGowan, MD, FACEP–GS

Current Professional Positions: Emergency Physician, St. Charles Medical Group

Internships and Residency: San Antonio Uniformed Services Health Education Consortium Emergency Medicine Residency (2008)

Medical Degree: MD, Oregon Health and Science University (2005)

Response: Emergency medicine is worth fighting for. Not just as a specialty, but as the last open door in American health care, the place where no one is turned away regardless of ability to pay, insurance status, or how sick they are. I’ve spent my career defending those who can’t fight for themselves, and I’m running for the ACEP Board because I believe the skills I’ve built doing that will make this Board stronger.

Long before medical school, I was a military officer. I entered the Air Force Academy, an institution built to produce leaders of character for the nation’s military, three weeks after high school graduation. I could have spent my military years working shifts and waiting to return to civilian life. Instead, I chose optional Professional Military Education alongside my CME, studying leadership and strategy starting in basic training and continuing through Air War College, the graduate-level course for national-level strategic decisions. Understanding how great thinkers approach leadership, collaborating across political and cultural divides to find common values, and approaching complex problems with genuine curiosity are skills I refined in combat hospitals and as commander of a Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and high-yield Explosive (CBRNE) response unit during COVID-19. My best work as a leader isn’t having the answer. It’s creating the conditions where the team builds a better answer than any of us could have reached alone.

The military also teaches you to follow rules. Salute smartly, stand here, check this box. There is power in understanding process and procedure, because if you want a different outcome from a system, you have to change the system. American health care isn’t broken. It is perfectly designed to produce exactly what it produces: crowded EDs, burned-out physicians, and patients dying while waiting for prior authorizations as insurers post record profits. Changing that requires the slow, unglamorous work of legislation, coalition building, and advocacy. It doesn’t make for social media clickbait, but it’s how systems actually change. My career has been training for exactly this kind of work.

I bring to the Board perspective from my work across the full spectrum of emergency medicine: deployed combat trauma, Level I centers, community hospitals, and rural critical access, combined with more than 20 years at ACEP Council and formal leadership training that most physicians never pursue.

There is no single answer that will solve what emergency medicine faces. There are thousands of answers. I’ll inspire teams to find them.

Abhi Mehrotra, MD, MBA, FACEP–NC (incumbent)

Current Professional Positions: Vice Chair–Operations, Department of Emergency Medicine at University of North Carolina (UNC); System Emergency Service Lead (UNC); Professor of Emergency Medicine (UNC), Adjunct Professor, Kenan-Flagler Business School.

Internships and Residency: Emergency Medicine Residency, University of North Carolina (2003)

Medical Degree: MD, The Ohio State University (2000); MBA, University of North Carolina (2015)

Response: Emergency medicine faces an inflection point. The pressures reshaping our specialty (e.g., workforce disruption, private equity consolidation, AI-driven clinical documentation, alternative payment models, and the rapid commoditization of care delivery) are fundamentally business and innovation challenges as much as they are clinical ones. Navigating them effectively requires more than policy experience or advocacy instincts. It requires fluency in the language and frameworks of business strategy, entrepreneurship, and organizational design. That is what I bring.

My MBA from Kenan-Flagler Business School has shaped how I approach governance: with attention to organizational incentives, financial sustainability, and competitive positioning. It informs how I analyze the economic forces bearing down on our members—from independent group viability to the downstream effects of consolidation on physician autonomy—and how I help translate those dynamics into Board-level strategy.

Beyond formal training, I bring direct entrepreneurial experience to this Board. I co-founded a medical scribe company, which required recruiting talent, constructing operations from scratch, and managing the tension between clinical quality and business viability. My involvement with Bivarus, a patient experience analytics platform, further deepened my exposure to health care technology commercialization, data-driven quality improvement, and the intersection of venture-backed innovation with care delivery. These are spaces where ACEP increasingly needs strategic credibility as we engage with health systems, technology vendors, payers, and policymakers.

My academic position at the University of North Carolina (UNC) also grounds me in the long-term health of our specialty’s pipeline. I take that responsibility seriously and have acted on it structurally: I developed and launched an Administration and Leadership Fellowship within the UNC Department of Emergency Medicine, creating a formal pathway for emerging physicians to build organizational and strategic competencies beyond traditional residency training. Cultivating the next generation of emergency medicine leaders is fundamental for me. That commitment to younger members extends beyond the training environment. My experience as a former EMRA leader gave me an early and enduring appreciation for the concerns, ambitions, and vulnerabilities of residents and early-career physicians.

ACEP needs a Board that can execute on our strategic priorities to champion individual emergency physicians. My blend of clinical experience, business acumen, entrepreneurial background, and investment in physician development gives the Board a perspective that is otherwise underrepresented. I would welcome the opportunity to continue bringing that perspective as your representative on the ACEP Board of Directors.

Heather S. Owen, MD, FACEP–TX

Current Professional Positions: Emergency Physician at Texas Health Presbyterian Dallas; Chief Clinical Officer, TeamHealth; Executive Director, Patient Safety Organization

Internships and Residency: Emergency Medicine Residency, University of Texas Southwestern/Parkland Memorial Hospital

Medical Degree: MD, University of Texas Medical Branch School of Medicine (2005)

Response: Emergency medicine is one of the most complex and rapidly evolving fields in health care. The challenges facing our specialty require thoughtful leadership from a Board with diverse experiences, varied perspectives, and complementary strengths. ACEP’s Board must reflect the breadth of emergency medicine itself, bringing together leaders with different backgrounds and expertise who can adapt to an increasingly complex health care landscape and help guide our specialty through continued change.

My experience across multiple emergency medicine practice settings, combined with my background in patient safety and clinical quality, allows me to bring a unique and valuable perspective to the Board. I began my career in a small community emergency department with limited specialist support, where I frequently managed critically ill patients independently until transfer to a higher level of care. I spent the first half of my career practicing in this environment and now work in a Level I Trauma Center where I help train the next generation of emergency physicians.

These varied experiences have given me a broad understanding of the clinical, operational, and cultural challenges facing physicians across our specialty. They have also reinforced the importance of adaptable, practical solutions that can succeed in very different practice environments.

In addition to frontline clinical experience, I bring extensive leadership experience in patient safety, clinical quality, and systems improvement. As the Patient Safety and Clinical Quality Officer for a multi-hospital physician-owned group, I led initiatives focused on improving risk profiles surrounding high-risk encounters and strengthening quality of care. My current role serving as the executive director of a patient safety organization has provided me with the experience to identify our greatest opportunities for improvement and then successfully improve emergency practice in those vulnerable areas. Identifying a problem, then creating scalable solutions that improve both physician practice environments and patient outcomes is a valuable skill set I have honed in the past years.

As health care continues to evolve, malpractice pressures rise, and administrative burdens intensify, supporting and protecting physicians at the bedside remains imperative. Identifying vulnerabilities within our systems, developing measurable improvement strategies, and helping physicians deliver safe, high-quality care despite increasing demands on their time and attention are where my strengths lie.

I believe this combination of frontline emergency medicine experience, patient safety expertise, and collaborative problem-solving would add an important and complementary perspective to the ACEP Board at a time when innovative, adaptable leadership is more important than ever.

Henry Z. Pitzele, MD, FACEP–IL (incumbent)

Current Professional Positions: Attending Physician, Section Chief of Emergency Medicine and Chief Health Informatics Officer, Jesse Brown VA Medical Center, Chicago.

Internships and Residency: Emergency Medicine residency, University of Illinois at Chicago (2003)

Medical Degree: MD, University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine (2000)

Response: There’s little that’s more important to me in (ACEP] College operations than communications. No matter how many amazing, EM-centric things ACEP accomplishes daily to make the working lives of emergency physicians better, we can’t sustain a specialty organization if the membership never hears about them.

I’ve worked hard, especially this past year as Vice President of Communications, to build those bridges, and I’ve been lucky to work with our leadership and the highly talented and superb new Comms arm of the College on large projects like Built on Results, on our video interviews, on increasing our social media presence, and on our many public position statements that gave frontline docs the support and backing they needed when facing their difficult local environments throughout this tumultuous year. It’s been an ongoing effort to meet emergency physicians where they live and work, not only to demonstrate value, but also to show our members the world of possibilities and practice environments beyond the brick-and-mortar walls of a typical community or academic ED. We must continue to use ACEP’s power and strength, through technology and social media, to bring members closer together, whether they are parts of chapters, sections, or just individual working emergency physicians; it is one of our most deeply held strategic values to have the College make emergency physicians feel connected, valued, and empowered to shape our specialty’s future.

One thing that hasn’t gone away is my singular focus that everything the College does is strictly for the improvement of the lives of individual, working emergency physicians—never corporations, universities, or any other institutions—and that business interests

never supersede the interests of frontline docs. That means that wherever you work (and by now, most of us are employees), the College is looking out for you, not for the entities who employ you. This sentiment informs everything we do, from reimbursement to education, and I take it very seriously—my Board colleagues are probably sick of hearing me repeat it.

Lastly, as an incumbent, I bring the past three years of experience; learning the ropes of Board membership and gaining a deep understanding of the College and the way we do business takes significant time and is no easy feat. Retaining that institutional knowledge is more important this year than most; it’s a tool I want to use to move us forward together.

Alexandra Nicole Thran, MD, FACEP–VT

Current Professional Positions: Emergency Physician (independent contractor)

Internships and Residency: Emergency Medicine Residency, University of Massachusetts (1991)

Medical Degree: MD, Vanderbilt School of Medicine (1988)

Response: My experience is the most valuable contribution I can bring to the ACEP Board of Directors.

I am a locums physician. I work in a wide variety of emergency departments and have more than 30 years in the pit. This gives me a broad perspective. I work in different hospital settings, with different staffing models, with different EMS systems, with different state laws, but there are challenges which are universal to all of us.

Boarding and overcrowding, lack of adequate beds and staffing, increasing amounts of societal violence, lack of primary care, lack of specialty care (especially in rural settings), lack of social service, and decreasing reimbursement; all of these issues harm our patients and cause us moral injury and burnout.

If I am elected, I will make ACEP stronger and help shape policies and initiatives that benefit you, our members, against the challenges that we all share.

Practicing locums has additional benefits. I have become more flexible, adaptable, a better communicator, listener, and collaborator. I work with others toward a common cause, even when they hold different perspectives and priorities.

These are essential qualities for effective Board leadership, particularly during a time when emergency medicine continues to face significant workforce, operational, and advocacy challenges.

Participation in ACEP sections has taught me leadership skills, provided speaking opportunities, and camaraderie. American Association of Women Emergency Physicians (AAWEP) remains a professional “safe space” and resource for leadership development and personal and professional satisfaction.

Through my work on the ACEP National Chapter Relations Committee, I gained an appreciation for the important relationship between national ACEP leadership and state chapters, and the challenges and opportunities faced at the chapter level.

My service on the Access, Belonging, and Community Committee reinforced the importance of fostering an organization where all members feel valued, heard, and supported.

Participation on the Professional Wellness Committee deepened my understanding of the systemic and personal factors contributing to physician burnout and professional fulfillment, issues that remain critically important to the future of our specialty.

Collectively, these experiences have given me a broad perspective on the needs of ACEP members across career stages, practice settings, and backgrounds. I believe I can contribute thoughtful, balanced leadership grounded in practical frontline experience, active organizational engagement, and a commitment to collaborative problem-solving.