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ACEP Now: Vol 40 – No 07 – July 2021

Susan R. Symonds for Mainframe Photographics

I wrote my first column for ACEP News as a fourth-year medical student in 2012. By allowing me to keep contributing columns during my early residency years, Bob Solomon, MD, FACEP, then the editor of ACEP News, in effect gave me my first recurring “job” as a writer. I could write about whatever I wanted, whether it was light-hearted, serious, or edgy. What a gift that was.

When, under the visionary leadership of Kevin Klauer, DO, EJD, FACEP, ACEP News became ACEP Now in 2014, I stayed on as a columnist, thanks to some backroom support from ACEP staff members Nancy Calaway and Darrin Scheid. (I never forget, and I always celebrate, those who have helped me along the way. Thanks, you two!) I soon joined the magazine’s editorial advisory board. Kevin had me writing dispatches about social media and medicine. It was service journalism, sure, but it kept me in the game and provided me with a front-row seat as a great magazine was being built and maintained. (It also freed me up to write about larger issues for other media outlets like Slate, where I soon became a regular contributor, and which led to my more recent work as a frequent contributor to the Washington Post, The New York Times, and elsewhere.) It’s no exaggeration then to say that ACEP Now has been an integral and formative part of my life as an emergency physician and writer, from the beginning of my career through today.

Naturally, I was thrilled to be offered the Medical Editor in Chief role for ACEP Now when Dr. Klauer left the position to become the Chief Executive Officer of the American Osteopathic Association. When I started in the role, I already understood the strengths of the magazine and also knew the areas where we could improve. Thanks to the professionalism and dedication of the team at Wiley, led by Dawn Antoline-Wang, our fearless, brilliant, incredibly well-organized, and somehow still fun and cheerful editor there; the fine craftwork, intelligent instincts, and good humor of Chris Whissen, our art director; plus ACEP’s passionate staff members Nancy Calaway and Jordan Grantham, we accomplished in two years what I thought would take at least five. The goal was to make sure that the magazine better reflected the College’s membership, had a modern look and feel, and captured the Herculean efforts of our physician members and full-time staff in Dallas and Washington, DC. 

Our Achievements

Here is just some of what we have accomplished:

• My first priority was to create new and recurring columns that better reflected the diversity of our membership and the outstanding advocacy by ACEP’s membership and its professional staff. I am proud that the very first recurring column I created was “The Equity Equation.” Curated by Dara Kass, MD, and Uché Blackstock, MD (and now by Jenice Baker, MD, FACEP), the column represents a major step in our commitment to covering gender issues, racial equity, and racism in medicine on a continuing and regular basis.
• We next focused on emerging voices in our field, creating “Resident Voice” and “Residency Spotlight.” These spaces are consciously meant to establish loyalty and excitement about the College from the people who will be our future colleagues and who will inherit the legacy we create today. Recently, to bolster the “Resident Voice” column, we announced our first Resident Fellow, who will steward this column and keep it current and lively.
• “FACEPs in the Crowd” is another a feature I initiated to promote our FACEP members and their diverse talents both in and outside of medicine. The idea was to highlight creative wellness opportunities, to promote our own members, and to provide another incentive for members to apply for FACEP status.
• “Medicolegal Mind” draws on expertise from Gita Pensa, MD, and Eric Funk, MD, who write about litigation concerns and challenging cases and documentation, respectively. Dr. Pensa’s columns destigmatize litigation—a substantial risk to all practicing emergency physicians—so readers are educated about its realities and so physicians facing legal proceedings may feel less isolated and less shame. In this way, we created a column that simultaneously empowers and informs readers while subtly offering wellness and coping strategies to overcome what is a significant source of stress for many of our colleagues. Similarly, the case reviews by Dr. Funk provide summaries of challenging clinical scenarios, seamlessly blending medical education on evolving standards of care, quality, and metacognition into a succinct and powerful format.
• In “By the Numbers,” another new section, we have devoted space to facts and figures on gun violence, suicide, the opioid epidemic, intimate partner violence, injury prevention, COVID-19, and more in clear and easy-to-digest data snapshots. The numbers speak for themselves, arming our members with data to understand and, where appropriate, advocate effectively for our profession and public health in the public space. I am proud that we have found a way to cover these important issues without politicizing them.
• Last year, we inaugurated a column to cover COVID-19 research to help readers stay updated on a wide array of emerging knowledge.
• More recently, we added the new column “Practice Changers,” written by Lauren Westafer, DO, MPH, an expert in research knowledge translation. This column provides more of the evidence-based cutting-edge medical education that members value.
• While we attracted new talent, we also kept our valued long-time contributors active so that we have a combination of new and established voices.
• We also improved our coverage of ACEP’s advocacy, making “ACEP4U” a regular staple of the magazine, written by ACEP staff member Jordan Grantham. Helping our members understand the advocacy done by the professionals at ACEP in Dallas and Washington, DC, has been a central theme of my tenure, as I felt that most members (especially those of “my generation” and the next) do not understand the full extent and implications of these efforts, which, in my opinion, deserve greater attention and appreciation.
• During my tenure, we added one new member of the ACEP Now editorial advisory board, Cedric Dark, MD, MPH, FACEP. Dr. Dark’s column, “PolicyRx,” began prior to my editorship, although the idea to recruit Dr. Dark to create this particular column was mine. I was pleased that my predecessor, Dr. Klauer, was wise enough to inaugurate that column and that it continued during my editorship. The fact that Dr. Dark has been named as my successor as Medical Editor in Chief of ACEP Now is a source of great satisfaction for me. More on that later.

By making these changes and improvements and others, our team at ACEP Now has engaged more members and taken concrete steps to begin addressing our profession’s long-standing challenges with inclusion, diversity, and representation. While more work remains to be done in this area, our feature contributors and regular columnists are more diverse by any measure than at any time in the history of the magazine.

In sum, I believe we have raised the quality of the magazine beyond even the truly excellent standards established by my predecessors. The magazine continues to win industry APEX Awards for Publication Excellence and remains among ACEP members’ most valued benefits. When you see the magazine online or in your real-life snail-mail mailbox, I know that many of you do, in fact, pick it up and read it. “Where have I seen you?” I am often asked by someone I’ve just met at ACEP Scientific Assembly or another emergency medicine event. “You’ve probably seen my face either on your desk or your bathroom floor,” I sometimes joke. I play it for laughs, but behind it is a genuine message: I’m proud that this magazine reaches people who I respect and admire in our field.

A New Chapter

What’s next? I’m pleased to share with you some details of my next chapter. Over the past several months, I’ve been working with a major partner on launching a new newsletter which will be published at least twice per week. I’ll be writing about all areas of medical news and research, though of course as I am a practicing emergency physician, the lens will always be one that you’ll recognize. I hope you’ll join me when we go live. That’s all I am permitted to say for now, but if you follow me on Twitter @JeremyFaust or Instagram @JeremySamuelFaust, you’ll be the first to know when we are up and running.

Lastly, I know you’re in great hands. There’s no one I would rather pass the baton to than my successor-designate, Dr. Cedric Dark. Dr. Dark is not only a wise and passionate advocate for emergency medicine—by which I mean that he is fiercely committed to helping both physicians and our patients—but he is a good friend. I’ve called on him for advice many times during my time in this role, and I know how he thinks. He’ll be a rigorous and fair steward of this magazine and help us navigate the important and complicated issues that we face today. The renewed energy he is already bringing to ACEP Now will take the magazine, and therefore all of us associated with the College, to new heights.

Farewell! And thanks to vaccines, I will see you at ACEP21 here in Boston!