Every year, ACEP Now interviews ACEP’s President. This year, Dr. Chris Kang, the first Asian American to hold the position, sat with our Medical Editor-in-Chief Cedric Dark, MD, MPH, FACEP, on Veteran’s Day to discuss important issues pertaining to the practice of emergency medicine.

Happy Veteran’s Day to you, sir.

Dr. Kang: Well, thank you very much. I appreciate the sentiment and appreciate obviously the service of all our members who have served honorably in the armed forces.

Maybe you could tell us a little bit about your day job at Madigan Army Medical Center.

Dr. Kang: [Madigan] was my last active-duty assignment, and afterwards, obviously, I fell in love with both the people as well as the mission. And when my service obligation was over, because of my love with the facilities, the people, as well as the residency program, they asked me to stay on as a civilian, and I’ve had the privilege of staying on there ever since.

Let’s get down to ACEP business now. How are you going to ensure that ACEP is making sure that emergency physicians retain their role as leaders in emergency departments around the country?

Dr. Kang: I think it’s remembering our primary mission and the reason for our organization is to represent emergency physicians. And I want to thank Dr. Schmitz (ACEP’s immediate past president) for her leadership over the past year. One of the things that I think has come out well from that is we have had interactions and communications with our colleagues, we’ve had discussions with employers as well as residency programs about where we think we are right now and where we need to go next.

One of the things that has come out of it is to make sure and continue to emphasize that emergency physicians are the leaders of the emergency care team, and I don’t think anyone disputes that. Where we start to get into a little trouble is different environments, different settings, and then different expectations from all of the professions. How can we make sure that we all have the same mission? If we remember that commonality, I believe that in time we can continue to make sure that emergency physicians continue to be the leaders, and, as a result, ensure a better quality of care for our patients and better career satisfaction for our members.