In June, Vidor E. Friedman, MD, FACEP, was elected by the ACEP Board of Directors (BOD) to serve as President-Elect following the resignation of ACEP President-Elect, John Rogers, MD, FACEP. Dr. Friedman recently sat down with ACEP Now Medical Editor in Chief and ACEP BOD member Kevin Klauer, DO, EJD, FACEP, to discuss stepping into the role of ACEP President-Elect.

KK: Vidor, these are very interesting times for ACEP. For the first time in the history of the organization, a President-Elect has resigned from the BOD. Can you shed some light on what had happened? What caused this transition when John decided to step down from his role?

VF: I’ve had several conversations with John since the June board meeting. John didn’t share his thoughts before he made this decision with anybody on the Board. I was sitting right next to him Monday at the Audit Committee meeting and Tuesday at the Finance Committee meeting, and he didn’t share that he was thinking about this. Given all that’s happened, I think, as John said in his letter to the ACEP Council [available here], this was a decision he came to over many months since the last annual meeting. John had heard that some members had concerns that he was not board-certified. He felt it was best for the College if he stepped out of the way to make certain this issue didn’t negatively reflect on the organization. He thought it was going to continue to be a distraction.

KK: How did you and the Board feel about this?

VF: The Board found out about this Tuesday [June 26] afternoon, right before our Board meeting started. Between Tuesday afternoon and mid-day Wednesday, John was asked to reconsider his resignation at least five times; we were all very supportive of him being the President. John’s mind was made up. Despite the fact that the Board and staff were very supportive of him, he felt that this was still the best decision for the College and specialty. The Board had to make a decision about filling the position or leaving it vacant. We felt that, given that the committee assignments for 2019 weren’t finalized and that there were another three months until the end of the annual meeting, it was important to fill the role.

Not everyone understands what the President-Elect does. I’ve been tasked with doing in three months what normally takes a year, and I can tell you that there’s quite a bit that the President-Elect is involved with in terms of setting the College up for the next year.