Dr. Sandra M. Schneider was chosen president-elect during the annual ACEP Council Meeting last month in conjunction with the Scientific Assembly in Boston. Dr. Schneider, an emergency physician from Rochester, N.Y., will serve a 1-year term and will assume ACEP’s presidency at next year’s meeting in Las Vegas.

The Council also elected two new members to the Board of Directors—Dr. Rebecca Parker and Dr. Jay Kaplan—and re-elected Dr. Robert Solomon and Dr. Alex Rosenau as incumbents. Board members serve 3-year terms.

The Council also chose its new officers—Speaker Arlo Weltge, M.D., and Vice Speaker Marco Coppola, D.O. Council officers serve 2-year terms.

Dr. Schneider is a professor and chair emeritus of the department of emergency medicine at the University of Rochester, and an attending physician at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, N.Y.

During her campaign speech to the Council, Dr. Schneider said she had the support of her group and her family to take sabbatical time and be a full-time president for ACEP.

“The challenges we face are complex, but we must not pass them on to future generations,” she said. “We must face them together.”

Dr. Schneider was vice president of ACEP’s Board of Directors this past year, and has been a leader on the issue of reducing overcrowding in the nation’s emergency departments.

“Patient boarding and overcrowding in emergency departments are critical problems that deserve attention at the highest levels of our government,” said Dr. Schneider. “It is imperative that we reduce the number of patients we board in our emergency departments to ensure that all patients get the timely care they need and deserve.”

Dr. Schneider was elected to the ACEP Board of Directors in 2004 and again in 2007. She served as the board’s secretary-treasurer before being elected vice president last year. She formerly served on the board of directors of the American Association for Emergency Psychiatry, and she is the former president of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine and the Association of Academic Chairs of Emergency Medicine.

Dr. Schneider served as the founding chair of the department of emergency medicine at the University of Rochester from 1993 to 2007, where she established a residency training program in emergency medicine and fellowship programs in pediatric emergency medicine, sports medicine, international emergency medicine, and EMS.

She earned her medical degree from the University of Pittsburgh and completed her internship and residency in internal medicine at Hospitals of the University of Pittsburgh. She is board certified in emergency medicine, and is the author of more than 50 peer-reviewed articles and 35 book chapters.