02/14/2020
February President's Message
How did you fall in love with EM?
It’s Valentine’s Day which means that “love is in the air!! For those celebrating, I hope you have already made your reservations and secured flowers and treats for your loved one! And if you haven’t, I hope your loved one is the forgiving type.
Along with celebrating our love for the special people in our lives, Valentine’s Day is a great time to reflect on why you “fell in love” with emergency medicine. What was it that led you to choose our specialty over another? Was it the diseases and pathophysiology? Was it the blend of procedures and medicine? Was it the flexibility of schedule?
For me, it was a combination of factors. I realized I liked the challenge of diagnosing a wide variety of diseases – knowing that some of them, many of them, can be life-threatening. I enjoyed knowing that I can make an immediate impact on the lives of my patients and would not have to be titrating medications over weeks or months. I also like that I am challenged with knowing “all things medicine.” There isn’t a patient population or disease process I’m not expected to be able to manage, and to be honest, I wouldn’t have it any other way. There are so many times that I leave the hospital thinking that what I did over the 10 hours of my shift was life-changing to some of my patients. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of that feeling.
Despite its many rewarding aspects, however, practicing emergency medicine is challenging, heart breaking, and sometimes requires soul searching. Burnout is real and it’s important to rekindle our passion for EM from time to time.
That’s exactly why I love attending our signature member event, the Ohio ACEP EM Assembly. It’s the perfect event to remind you what made you fall in love with emergency medicine in the first place. The Assembly has been revamped for 2020, including a new event space, the Grand Event Center. We have an exciting line-up featuring our Three Pillars Member Showcase, 20-minute rapid-fire sessions designed to enlighten, entertain, and highlight the talent of our members. We also have some great presentations scheduled on critical issues like surprise billing—one of the hottest topics currently shaking up emergency medicine—and how it impacts you (and how to get involved in efforts to solve the problem!). Join us on March 17, bring a friend, and reconnect with colleagues!
In the meantime, I hope you’ll take a moment to reflect on why emergency medicine is important to you—how you fell in love with the specialty and why you continue to love it. I’d love to hear about it when I see you at the EM Assembly in March!
Brad Raetzke, MD, MBA, FACEP
President
Ohio ACEP
braetzke@gmail.com
614-949-7633