Lt Col (ret) Roderick Fontenette, MD, FACEP

I hope your 2024 is off to a great start! Your chapter has been busy over the last year advocating for what affects each and every one of us on shift and the patients we care for, whether it was taking our advocacy efforts directly to Congressional Representatives on the Hill at LAC to attending several high-level meetings with ACEP leadership to discuss ways to tackle the boarding crisis or the workplace violence we experience and the moral injury it causes. We have also established a task force to evaluate our clinical competency and how it affects readiness. As we prepare for the next conflict, it is crucial we train up and do all that is possible to ensure wartime readiness, and who better than this chapter to lead the charge?  

Cpt Jacob Altholz, MD

This year’s annual Government Services Symposium 2024 will be held in San Diego, CA! This year’s symposium opens with Maj Gen (Ret) Lee Payne, MD, FACEP discussing the future of healthcare and its implications for emergency medicine. ACEP President Aisha Terry will be discussing how to strengthen the pipeline of our specialty. Our specialty leaders will also be in attendance, updating each of us on the changes within our services. As always, evenings will contain receptions, such as the opening Reception/Research Forum on the USS Midway and the SimWars/Closing Reception at the Strategic Operations Command Center- a hyper-realistic military and medical training “Hollywood style” compound.  Guest tickets are available for both.

First, we sincerely thank our founding member and immediate past Chair, LT Matthew Christensen, for his thoughtful and extraordinary work over the last year as Chair and his many years of work before while serving in numerous committee roles. We look forward to him continuing to play an integral role on our team. Our major events for the upcoming year will include four Quarterly Collaborations during which we will host a virtual speaker in collaboration with another EMRA committee, virtual programming during EMRA March Madness, and live programming during EMRA@ACEP.

Paul Roszko, MD, FAEMS FACEP

It is no secret that multiple challenges face the US healthcare system in 2024.  For emergency medicine physicians, issues involving boarding, for-profit private equity groups, regulatory requirements, and complicated electronic health records have led to significant increases in burnout and an increase in physicians who have left clinical practice or are considering to do so.  Anecdotally from conversations I have had with many of my peers across the country, there is a feeling that practicing emergency medicine today is not the same as it was only a decade ago.