Logo

Log In Sign Up |  An official publication of: American College of Emergency Physicians
Navigation
  • Home
  • Multimedia
    • Podcasts
    • Videos
  • Clinical
    • Airway Managment
    • Case Reports
    • Critical Care
    • Guidelines
    • Imaging & Ultrasound
    • Pain & Palliative Care
    • Pediatrics
    • Resuscitation
    • Trauma & Injury
  • Resource Centers
    • mTBI Resource Center
  • Career
    • Practice Management
      • Benchmarking
      • Reimbursement & Coding
      • Care Team
      • Legal
      • Operations
      • Quality & Safety
    • Awards
    • Certification
    • Compensation
    • Early Career
    • Education
    • Leadership
    • Profiles
    • Retirement
    • Work-Life Balance
  • Columns
    • ACEP4U
    • Airway
    • Benchmarking
    • Brief19
    • By the Numbers
    • Coding Wizard
    • EM Cases
    • End of the Rainbow
    • Equity Equation
    • FACEPs in the Crowd
    • Forensic Facts
    • From the College
    • Images in EM
    • Kids Korner
    • Medicolegal Mind
    • Opinion
      • Break Room
      • New Spin
      • Pro-Con
    • Pearls From EM Literature
    • Policy Rx
    • Practice Changers
    • Problem Solvers
    • Residency Spotlight
    • Resident Voice
    • Skeptics’ Guide to Emergency Medicine
    • Sound Advice
    • Special OPs
    • Toxicology Q&A
    • WorldTravelERs
  • Resources
    • ACEP.org
    • ACEP Knowledge Quiz
    • Issue Archives
    • CME Now
    • Annual Scientific Assembly
      • ACEP14
      • ACEP15
      • ACEP16
      • ACEP17
      • ACEP18
      • ACEP19
    • Annals of Emergency Medicine
    • JACEP Open
    • Emergency Medicine Foundation
  • About
    • Our Mission
    • Medical Editor in Chief
    • Editorial Advisory Board
    • Awards
    • Authors
    • Article Submission
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise
    • Subscribe
    • Privacy Policy
    • Copyright Information

Dr. Bradford Walters Salutes ACEP’s 50 Years of Contributions to EM

By ACEP Now | on December 17, 2018 | 1 Comment
Break Room Opinion
  • Tweet
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
Print-Friendly Version
Break Room

I would like to say congratulations on our 50th birthday. I have not been an ACEP member for all of that time, but I have been a member for some 38 years. While by far not the first, I am among that early generation of physicians who trained specifically in emergency medicine and whose career has been entirely within our specialty. Certainly, congratulations are in order for an organization that is a half century old. Who would have thought in those early days we would make it this far? The overriding issue facing emergency medicine was just to establish the specialty. My aim with this letter is to thank ACEP for all it has done, not just for the specialty of emergency medicine but for me personally.

You Might Also Like
  • Emergency Physician Dr. Bradford Walters on Being First Responder to Northwest Flight 255 Crash
  • ACEP’s Teaching Fellowship Celebrates 25 Years
  • Michigan College of Emergency Physicians Celebrates Medicaid Reimbursement Win
Explore This Issue
ACEP Now: Vol 37 – No 12 – December 2018

Back in the early 1980s, as an emergency medicine resident on the East Coast, I was struck by the distinctly neophyte position of our specialty. Being from Michigan, the land of Krome, Tintinalli, Bock, Wiegenstein, and Rupke, where emergency medicine was more established, I found it disconcerting that as an EM resident I was constantly having to explain who I was and that I did plan on working in an “ER” my entire career. Hardly a shift went past where I was not explaining to a patient, another resident, an off-service attending, or a hospital administrator that emergency medicine was a bona fide specialty and that the care rendered in the emergency department was going to improve and grow as the result of residency-trained emergency physicians. That need to explain what emergency medicine was continued as I graduated to the role of an attending physician.

ACEP’s major task at that time was to define the specialty. By going to meetings on a national and state level, I learned to articulate that message. I was also better able to apply those lessons in the various battles being fought on the hospital, local, state, and national levels. Our measure of success is that it has been a long time since I have had such a “justify emergency medicine” conversation. We have gone from being absent on the academic side of medicine to where our presence in academia and medical schools is now well-established. We are now one of the most highly sought-after specialties by graduating medical students.

First, let me say thanks to the dogged persistence of this national organization and my own state chapter for never giving up, never losing sight of the big picture, and for establishing emergency medicine as a leading voice for what is now an accepted part of the house of medicine. We just had an emergency physician as president of the American Medical Association, something unthinkable back in the beginning of my career.

Pages: 1 2 3 | Single Page

Topics: 50th AnniversaryACEP 50 Yearscareer

Related

  • Aerospace Medicine Residency Program Pushes the Envelope

    June 25, 2025 - 1 Comment
  • ACEP4U: Ramping Up Residency Outreach

    May 8, 2025 - 0 Comment
  • UCSF Resident Lives the Dream On “Survivor” Season 47

    May 8, 2025 - 0 Comment

Current Issue

ACEP Now: July 2025

Download PDF

Read More

About the Author

ACEP Now

View this author's posts »

One Response to “Dr. Bradford Walters Salutes ACEP’s 50 Years of Contributions to EM”

  1. December 20, 2018

    Kevin Monfette MD, FACEP Reply

    Dr Walters, thank you for your service. Many do not realize this is a man that has never sought recognition but has always been available when ever asked to help his speciality. I remember as a naive resident I worked with him briefly on the violence in the emergency department. He was giving without taking over. This is a man with great humility and self deprivation, like we all are who live in the fish bowl of medicine. We are so easily critiqued and rarely complimented. So please let me compliment a great mentor from MCEP Brad Walters, and every other emergency physician that struggles our struggles daily. Thank you ACEP, MCEP and every other ED orginazation that recognizes our up hill battles for support. Many times speaking with hospital staff I ask how often the cath lab or OR goes unstaffed, and when they do they shut down. Not us we dig our heals in and provide great care to anyone and everyone. I’m proud to say Brad is a mentor of mine and that I am an Emergency Physician!

    Kevin Monfette, MD, FACEP

Leave a Reply Cancel Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *


*
*

Careers Center
  • Level 1 Trauma - Emergency Medicine Physician

    Emergency Medicine Physician at region's only Level 1 Trauma Center in the heart of California

    Fresno, California

    $225,000-$310,000. Approximate base compensation and does not include incentives or benefits.

    Inspire Health Medical Group

    Read More
  • ED Physician Opportunities in Beautiful, Coastal Southeastern Virginia

    RIVERSIDE HEALTH SYSTEM MISSION: To care for others as we would care for those we love.

    Newport News, Virginia

    Worked RVU model with excellent benefits package

    Riverside Health System

    Read More
  • ER Physician – Greater Houston, TX BC/BE in FM or EM

    We know times have changed, and EM is experiencing a shortage of Physicians-We know you need better than average compensation and we do just that!

    Magnolia and Cypress TX (Greater Houston)

    315K-500K annually

    America's ER and UC

    Read More
More Jobs
Wiley
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy
  • Terms of Use
  • Advertise
  • Cookie Preferences
Copyright © 2025 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved, including rights for text and data mining and training of artificial technologies or similar technologies. ISSN 2333-2603