The advocacy summit on Day 2 provided attendees with an update on the key federal legislative and regulatory issues facing emergency medicine for their Capitol Hill meetings. As with every LAC that ACEP has held, the College develops a set of priority issues and talking points for the Capitol Hill visits. Identifying the “right” issues to focus on during a “fly-in” meeting requires a thoughtful

R.J. Sontag, MD, shares his personal experience with ED violence with Senator Sherrod Brown’s staffers as Ohio ACEP Executive Director Holly Dorr, MBA, CAE, CMP, looks on.

and strategic approach in order to increase our likelihood of advocacy success. That strategy is based upon identifying issues that are both important for emergency physicians and that will resonate on Capitol Hill given the current political climate and priorities of Congress and the Administration. Our goal is to remind legislators that we do “the work of the people every day” and that we need their support and protection to be able to continue that work. This year’s topics focused on improving the protections and rights of emergency physicians: 

• Support for the Workplace Violence Prevention for Health Care and Social Service Workers Act (S.4182)
• Urging introduction of the ER Hero and Patient Safety Act to guarantee due process protections for all emergency physicians
• Calling for hearings to reform the flawed Medicare reimbursement system to ensure fair payments to physicians

Each year, while those of us who attend LAC get to tell our stories, we also understand that we are representing emergency physicians across the country and telling your stories too. For many of us, being on duty in the emergency department can feel like an isolating experience, and we can forget that we are part of a larger community. Attending LAC changes that. There is an incredible power to sharing our personal experiences and bringing our collective voices together on Capitol Hill to advocate for our fellow physicians, our patients, and our specialty.

LAC First Timer Reflections 

Marcus Wooten, MD

Dr. Wooten

“I’m in my advocacy elective [right now] and I have an interest in health policy. Getting a chance to see the process and actually getting to go on Capitol Hill to talk about these issues and how and why they are affecting our specialty was really enlightening. It was a great experience.” —Marcus Wooten, MD, EM resident and first-time LAC22 attendee from Akron, Ohio