Our Achievements

Here is just some of what we have accomplished:

• My first priority was to create new and recurring columns that better reflected the diversity of our membership and the outstanding advocacy by ACEP’s membership and its professional staff. I am proud that the very first recurring column I created was “The Equity Equation.” Curated by Dara Kass, MD, and Uché Blackstock, MD (and now by Jenice Baker, MD, FACEP), the column represents a major step in our commitment to covering gender issues, racial equity, and racism in medicine on a continuing and regular basis.
• We next focused on emerging voices in our field, creating “Resident Voice” and “Residency Spotlight.” These spaces are consciously meant to establish loyalty and excitement about the College from the people who will be our future colleagues and who will inherit the legacy we create today. Recently, to bolster the “Resident Voice” column, we announced our first Resident Fellow, who will steward this column and keep it current and lively.
• “FACEPs in the Crowd” is another a feature I initiated to promote our FACEP members and their diverse talents both in and outside of medicine. The idea was to highlight creative wellness opportunities, to promote our own members, and to provide another incentive for members to apply for FACEP status.
• “Medicolegal Mind” draws on expertise from Gita Pensa, MD, and Eric Funk, MD, who write about litigation concerns and challenging cases and documentation, respectively. Dr. Pensa’s columns destigmatize litigation—a substantial risk to all practicing emergency physicians—so readers are educated about its realities and so physicians facing legal proceedings may feel less isolated and less shame. In this way, we created a column that simultaneously empowers and informs readers while subtly offering wellness and coping strategies to overcome what is a significant source of stress for many of our colleagues. Similarly, the case reviews by Dr. Funk provide summaries of challenging clinical scenarios, seamlessly blending medical education on evolving standards of care, quality, and metacognition into a succinct and powerful format.
• In “By the Numbers,” another new section, we have devoted space to facts and figures on gun violence, suicide, the opioid epidemic, intimate partner violence, injury prevention, COVID-19, and more in clear and easy-to-digest data snapshots. The numbers speak for themselves, arming our members with data to understand and, where appropriate, advocate effectively for our profession and public health in the public space. I am proud that we have found a way to cover these important issues without politicizing them.
• Last year, we inaugurated a column to cover COVID-19 research to help readers stay updated on a wide array of emerging knowledge.
• More recently, we added the new column “Practice Changers,” written by Lauren Westafer, DO, MPH, an expert in research knowledge translation. This column provides more of the evidence-based cutting-edge medical education that members value.
• While we attracted new talent, we also kept our valued long-time contributors active so that we have a combination of new and established voices.
• We also improved our coverage of ACEP’s advocacy, making “ACEP4U” a regular staple of the magazine, written by ACEP staff member Jordan Grantham. Helping our members understand the advocacy done by the professionals at ACEP in Dallas and Washington, DC, has been a central theme of my tenure, as I felt that most members (especially those of “my generation” and the next) do not understand the full extent and implications of these efforts, which, in my opinion, deserve greater attention and appreciation.
• During my tenure, we added one new member of the ACEP Now editorial advisory board, Cedric Dark, MD, MPH, FACEP. Dr. Dark’s column, “PolicyRx,” began prior to my editorship, although the idea to recruit Dr. Dark to create this particular column was mine. I was pleased that my predecessor, Dr. Klauer, was wise enough to inaugurate that column and that it continued during my editorship. The fact that Dr. Dark has been named as my successor as Medical Editor in Chief of ACEP Now is a source of great satisfaction for me. More on that later.

By making these changes and improvements and others, our team at ACEP Now has engaged more members and taken concrete steps to begin addressing our profession’s long-standing challenges with inclusion, diversity, and representation. While more work remains to be done in this area, our feature contributors and regular columnists are more diverse by any measure than at any time in the history of the magazine.

In sum, I believe we have raised the quality of the magazine beyond even the truly excellent standards established by my predecessors. The magazine continues to win industry APEX Awards for Publication Excellence and remains among ACEP members’ most valued benefits. When you see the magazine online or in your real-life snail-mail mailbox, I know that many of you do, in fact, pick it up and read it. “Where have I seen you?” I am often asked by someone I’ve just met at ACEP Scientific Assembly or another emergency medicine event. “You’ve probably seen my face either on your desk or your bathroom floor,” I sometimes joke. I play it for laughs, but behind it is a genuine message: I’m proud that this magazine reaches people who I respect and admire in our field.