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1997 SAEM Presidential Address
Author(s) -
Dronen Steven C.
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
academic emergency medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.221
H-Index - 124
eISSN - 1553-2712
pISSN - 1069-6563
DOI - 10.1111/j.1553-2712.1998.tb02579.x
Subject(s) - medicine , section (typography) , center (category theory) , presidential system , emergency physician , citation , medical school , library science , emergency department , family medicine , medical education , law , computer science , political science , psychiatry , chemistry , politics , crystallography , operating system
I As my term as SAEM President comes to a close, I would like to thank everyone who contributed their time and talent to help make this a successful year. I will begin with the Committee and Task Force chairs who do most of the work of the Society, without much fanfare or recognition. I have been privileged to work with a superb Board of Directors, including Lew Goldfrank, Marcus Martin, John Marx, Ed Bernstein, Michelle Biros, Sandy Schneider, Steve Stapczynski, Scott Syverud, and Brian Zink. My thanks to all of you, and especially to Lew Goldfrank and John Marx, the immediate past and future presidents of the organization who worked closely with me during the course of the year and contributed to smooth transitions at the beginning and end of my term. Lew will be stepping off the Board this year, and I can tell you that his contributions will be missed tremendously. Whatever issue the Board was confronting, Lew always kept us on track, reminding us to be compassionate, altruistic, and principled in our deliberation and activities. Lew, thanks for being there and making my job much easier. I also want to thank the residents and faculty at the University of Michigan for their support and for putting up with my preoccupation with the Society and with a fax machine that was always busy with SAEM correspondence. Finally, thanks to Mary Ann Schropp and her staff. I am not sure how many of you realize the extent to which we are all dependent upon Mary Ann to keep this organization running smoothly. It simply would not be the same organization without her. Before I turn over the reigns of the presidency, I would like to make a few remarks about a topic upon which I have tried to focus the organizations energies and resources this past year, namely, the academic development of our residents and faculty. As I look to the future, I believe that academic development will continue to be one of the biggest challenges that emergency medicine (EM) faces. There is no doubt that at the present time we have our hands full with other important issues such as graduate medical education funding cutbacks, managed care, and an increasing competitive clinical environment. I am not suggesting that any of these are unimportant, but even as we face these issues, academic development remains a premiere challenge for one simple reason. We are all academicians and we are all involved in the growth and maturation of an ac-