This rapidly growing database has more than 100 international speakers, all of whom submitted themselves as ready, willing, and able to handle speaking assignments. This database is open-access and available to all emergency medicine conference organizers, hopefully increasing the proportion of women speaking in the near future.

FemInEM is approaching the cause for gender equity and workplace flexibility exactly opposite to those commenting on Dr. Clem’s article. For that, I’m inspired. The commenters on her piece are never going to feel good about “paying for someone’s disability [maternity leave],” but maybe once they get to know these extraordinarily talented and dedicated physicians, they’ll stop seeing them as “disabled.”

FemInEM will never be about quotas, modification of clinical standards, or special consideration. Instead, it’s about a common journey to be the best physicians, wives, mothers, daughters, employees, and people we can be. Because being true to all aspects of each of us isn’t a choice—it’s just honest.

Dr. Kass completed her residency training at SUNY Downstate/Kings County Hospital and is currently the director of undergraduate medical education at New York University/ Bellevue Hospital. She is active in the Academy for Women in Academic Emergency Medicine and is the editor-in-chief of www.feminem.org, an open-access resource meant to discuss, discover, and affect the journey of women working in emergency medicine.