July 15, 2021

We Asked Your EM Workforce Questions

The Young Physicians Section recently hosted a discussion about the future of the emergency medicine workforce with ACEP President-Elect Gillian Schmitz, MD, FACEP, and EMRA President-Elect Angela Cai, MD, MBA, FACEP. 

ACEP’s Young Physicians Section is highly invested in the future of the emergency medicine workforce and has been following the updates closely, but we solicited input from our fellow young physicians about which parts of the workforce outlook are most concerning or confusing so we could discuss those directly with Dr. Schmitz and Dr. Cai. We didn't have time for all of the questions, but we hope to record another discussion soon to address the other topics.

If you're interested in certain aspects of the workforce efforts, here are the time stamps for the topics in the video. After you watch this episode, we'd love your feedback!

 
3:23 Status Report: What progress have we made so far? Where do we stand?
6:07 Path for Progress: Explaining the five pillars of the EM workforce framework
13:30 Scope Expansion: Is there room for EM physicians to use their skill sets in additional areas — GI, cardiology, pulmonology, etc? How does this look in different phases of our careers? Is this a way to offer more flexibility and improve longevity in the field?
21:40 Reimbursement Challenges: How do we bring along the payors to make sure our full scope of work is being reimbursed?
25:25 Rural vs. Urban: How do we address the distribution of EM physicians to better serve rural areas?
31:35 Scope of Practice: Do we have a responsibility to be advocating for resident-only training sites? How does scope of practice fit into the workforce issue?
37:00 Maintaining Value: How do we push back against this desire to create a saturated, cheap workforce without violating antitrust laws?
43:22 Quality of Care: How do we better explain and emphasize our level of training to our patients so that they can understand the importance of physician-led care?
46:50 Taking Action: What do ACEP and EMRA plan to do in the next 3,6,4,12, 24 months to make concrete changes to address this issue?
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