As seems like the norm in the last few years, there are fresh disasters to contend with. To all healthcare workers impacted by the floods in Queensland and northern New South Wales, we offer our support and admiration to each of you. We know you are working hard in tremendously challenging circumstances to provide healthcare to people in need – while worrying about the wellbeing of your own loved ones, homes and communities. We are in awe of all that you are, and do.
In some parts of Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand, the Omicron strain of COVID-19 is beginning, or in the middle of, its peak and having its most significant impact on the health system. We are thinking of our colleagues in these hard-hit places right now. Please know, we feel it with you, and we are here for you, should you need support. Kia kaha.
For other states, who were hit earliest, we are tentatively taking steps out into where COVID-19 isn’t the main feature of life in the ED. For us it is time, as we still grapple with COVID-19 and access block, to start looking hopefully towards the future. So, what is the future of emergency medicine?
There is no emergency medicine without people that want to specialise in it, no College without trainees – so it is trainees who are the future of emergency medicine. While we have been – touch wood – lucky so far to avoid the technical issues that have affected other Colleges’ exam process, EM trainees have still been under extraordinary pressure balancing exams, while grappling with the extra stresses from COVID-19 on their lives, and work.
I am grateful for their huge efforts and their dedication to learning our craft, and I am excited about what influence they will have on emergency medicine, on the health systems we serve and on the College.
Dr Joe Epstein, the co-founder of ACEM, repeats often that he sees the future of the College as becoming increasingly diverse, and this is how I see it, too. The broader the range of voices, the more strengths we possess collectively – the more impactful we can be.
While FACEMs are tasked with educating trainees, I suspect we learn as much from trainees as they do from us. Reverse mentorship is a huge and valuable part of vital learning experiences and a practice that I encourage all emergency physicians to explore.
Our trainees come from a wide breadth of life and work experiences and bring fresh perspectives to the College and to emergency medicine. They offer us, established FACEMs, the benefit of their knowledge about the broader social context EM will sit within, and of new and emerging practices and movements in our field, and the world. We are lucky to have them.
It is vitally important that we continue to support our trainees. It is high quality education and training that is the foundation of safe, effective, compassionate emergency care and we are grateful for the work that members and college staff do in this space.
For those just starting out in emergency medicine – welcome. We are excited to add you to our team of 6,000 and growing. Each of us are here to support you. This isn’t a platitude – emergency medicine is a dynamic and demanding speciality, and we need each other to thrive. Your peers, Faculty, your Chair, the College staff, and I are all here for you.
We entreat you to step forward into College life. We want to know what you think – about training, about the College, about our curriculum, about the future of emergency medicine. Within your ranks are our future leaders and we encourage those of you who aspire to representative roles to step forward, to put your hand up. Your voice is important, and we want to hear it.
Until next month, thank you – all 6000 of you – for all that you do. As always, whatever is ahead for us in the health system, in the College and in our EDs, we will get through this together.
Dr Clare Skinner
ACEM President