10/20/2016
October President's Message
When you read this hopefully everyone will have made it home from Las Vegas safely. Whew. What an amazing but exhausting seven days. As I've written before, ACEP Council is my single favorite activity of the year. Nearly 400 Councillors from around the country gathered for two days to debate resolutions and elect the Board of Directors and new President-Elect of the College, Dr. Paul Kivela from California. A special congratulations, however, goes to Ohio's Dr. Jim Augustine on his re-election to the Board and Dr. Kevin Klauer on his election to the Board. That's right, two of fourteen members of the national ACEP Board are from Ohio. Just like the upcoming election, "nothing happens without Ohio."
Congratulations also go out to a friend of the Chapter, Dr. Becky Parker of Illinois, who assumed the Presidency of ACEP at Council. Dr. Parker outlined several priorities for her Presidency, including:
- Enhancing member benefits, personalized for member interests and needs
- Fighting psychiatric boarding and crowding by increasing access to mental health services
- Supporting members and their practices during implementation of the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA)
- Taking on dishonest billing practices that harm our patients and fellow EM physicians
- Increasing diversity among our membership and other practitioners of emergency medicine in order to broaden the perspectives heard within EM and to better care for an increasingly diverse patient population
We at Ohio ACEP look forward to helping support and advance Dr. Parker’s agenda.
I shan't list all of the thirty-one resolutions considered by Council, but as always, the breadth and scope varied from small, single issues on changes to the College bylaws to large scale resolutions about CMS metrics, free-standing EDs, psychiatric boarding, and diversity within the College. Once the resolutions are passed by Council and adopted by the Board a final report will be available on actions to be taken, often assignment to one of the many College committees for further work.
So that was just my first two days out there. Then the actual ACEP16 started. Lectures from the best in EM on every topic you could imagine could be found. Concurrent to the lectures the business of the College is conducted with committee and section meetings. I've learned that going to ACEP’s Scientific Assembly is a marathon and not a sprint. Of course awesome parties were attended every evening and too much food and drink was had with current and old friends. But remember, "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas."
I think I'll have enough time to rest up for ACEP17 in Washington, D.C., October 30th-November 2nd. Maybe...
Michael
Michael J. McCrea, MD, FACEP
President, Ohio ACEP