From the Chair - Goals for the Year

Critical Care Medicine Section
December 2007, Vol 9, #1

Todd L. Slesinger, MD, FACEP

I am honored to be the new Chair of this section. We had a very successful meeting in Seattle, and I wanted to thank all of the American Board of Emergency Medicine (ABEM) staff that came to our meeting and gave us updates and answered our questions. ABEM has always sent representatives to our annual meeting, and we truly appreciate all the work they are doing on our behalf.

I have an extensive list of goals that I want the section to attain this year:

1.  Update the Section Operational Guidelines to correspond to our actual practice.

The operational guidelines that were created when the section was formed were based on a template of operational guidelines for sections. As this section has grown we have changed some of these, and with all of the interest in elections this year, we must update the guidelines on the election and duties of officers. The guideline revisions will be submitted to the ACEP Board of Directors for approval.

2.  Expand our membership

It is imperative that we keep growing as a section. The more members we have, the more we can achieve. This item should receive top priority, due to the possibility of getting additional section funds based on membership. We will be reaching out to all of the resident members to encourage them to join our section for free. I also ask that all of our members individually recruit membership. It is easy to sign up on the website, and we will be offering more content to our members.

3.  Continue existing section projects

We will continue to support Julie A Mayglothling, MD on her emergency medicine-critical care medicine (EM-CCM) census, and Dell Simmons, MD on the EM-CCM fellowship database. These projects will be updated on the section website.

4.  Provide more education to our members

We will improve the educational component of our website. The new website editor will be Melissa Fiorini, MD, FACEP. We will work with the Program Committee in order to have more critical care lectures at the national meeting. We will also add an educational component to our annual meeting, by inviting a guest lecturer.

5.  Increase our exposure on a national level

Besides getting more critical care lectures at the national meeting, we will get more national exposure by submitting a resolution to the national council meeting in support of our cause, similar to what the Ultrasound Section achieved this year.

6.  Continue to work with ABEM on board certification issues

ABEM has always been our ally and has worked hard on our behalf even when there were only a handful of us seeking ABMS board certification. ABMS is the standard in this country and certification throught ABMS continues to be our goal. We will do all that we can to provide data to ABEM in order to help them with our cause. The European Diploma of Intensive Care Medicine (EDIC) has been a great alternative and is available to us. We will put more board preparation information on the website besides the existing past newsletter articles on the subject.

7.  Provide more content at our annual meeting

As I alluded to above, we will add an educational program to our annual meeting. In addition, we will try to arrange it at a time closer to lunch and have a sponsored meal at the event. Ideally, we will also arrange a time for socializing after the business of the meeting is completed. I look forward to hearing any ideas from you on this subject.

8.  Fellowship Curriculum project

This will be our largest project and will take more than a year to complete. Timothy J. Ellender, MD will work with me and other fellowship directors in compiling fellowship curriculums that are in existence. We will then attempt to put it all together to create a recommended curriculum for the training of EM-CCM fellows that meets various eligibilities, as well as creating a resource database for future fellowships in EM-CCM.

I want to thank David T. Huang, MD, MPH, FACEP, for all the hard work he put into this section for the last two years as Chair, as well as the rest of the staff who have worked so hard. I would also like to thank Gloria Thompson for all of the hard work she gave the section as staff liaison for as long as I can remember before her retirement from ACEP earlier this year. I want to thank Dr. Jouriles for all of his help as Board Liaison and congratulate him on being President-Elect of the College. Lastly, I want to welcome Margaret Montgomery, RN, MSN as our new staff liaison and thank her for all the work she has already done for the section.

I look forward to a great and productive year for the section, and I invite all those interested to contact me with any questions, ideas and support.

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