There is a succession plan for all of the chairs of our committees and our sections as well as presidents of our chapters. There’s a clear president-elect in the wings waiting to take the helm in terms of leadership.

We want there to also be a diversity of leaders who have an opportunity to serve. Mentoring and preparing future generations to lead is absolutely critical.

Finally, we spent this year really having conversations with and highlighting leaders in emergency medicine who are doing things outside of clinical practice. We’ve had the honor of speaking with Dr. David Callaway, who is one of the national presidential scholars and also an emergency physician. We’ve had conversations also with Dr. Brad Barth who is currently the Executive Director of Alpha Omega Alpha and an emergency physician. And finally, most recently I had discussions with Dr. Joneigh Khaldun, who is the Chief Equity Officer of CVS and an emergency physician. I truly believe that you can’t be what you don’t see. And so, this has been an opportunity to really highlight the vast opportunities that we have as emergency physicians.

DR. DARK: I was looking back through our last interview, and you had said that only 39 percent of emergency physicians are women. Only 35 percent of emergency physicians are from minority backgrounds in terms of race and ethnicity. But over the past six months since we last spoke, we‘ve seen DEI come under attack. You spoke with the Rep. Greg Murphy who introduced the EDUCATE Act, which we‘ve mentioned a couple times in ACEP Now, and it‘s a bill that would‘ve essentially defunded medical schools if they happen to even have a DEI office. I know that you‘ve stated that it runs counter to ACEP‘s policies, but one thing that you did say, because I was sitting there at LAC, you said you‘re going to follow up with him. I want to know what kind of dialogue you have had?

DR. TERRY: I really appreciate you holding me accountable to that. I’m so proud of the College for how we handled that situation. It really was a moment that gave us an opportunity to stand up with courage and to really shout about our policies when it comes to DEI. As you know, I did speak with Representative Murphy about the bill. First of all, it’s pretty complex in that it has several components.