BOSTON—Rebecca Parker, MD, FACEP, the Chair of ACEP’s Board of Directors from Park Ridge, Illinois, was named President-Elect by the ACEP Council during its meeting Sunday in Boston.

Dr. Parker is an attending emergency physician with Vista Health in Waukegan, Illinois. She is senior vice president of Envision Healthcare and president of Team Parker LLC, a consulting group. Dr. Parker is also a clinical assistant professor at the Texas Tech El Paso department of emergency medicine.

“As your next President-Elect, I have two visions—establishing emergency medicine as the nucleus of a new acute care continuum and enhancing our diversity,” said Dr. Parker in her campaign speech to the Council.

“We must take a new approach to make this an opportunity to re-invent our practice. Let’s create a new acute care continuum, with the emergency physician leading the charge,” she said.

“I will lead ACEP to finish our quality registry for Medicare and create an economic registry to fight insurer bad behavior. In addition, I will work to create and pilot real-world examples of a new acute care continuum within which telemedicine, urgent care, and care coordination will be cornerstone programs.”

“I also will work aggressively to address our workforce issues to ensure that physician-led teams provide the best possible care in partnership with our PA, NP, and nursing colleagues,” she added. “Our medical students must have enough residency slots to complete their training, and we must decrease emergency physician burn-out rates.”

“My second vision is to foster generational, racial, and gender diversity within our specialty,” Dr. Parker said “As President, I will create a task force on diversity with our sister societies. Studies clearly demonstrate that more diverse organizations are stronger and more successful. We will increase our wellness, longevity, and grow our desperately needed workforce. Inclusivity sends a clear message: we take care of our own.”

Active with ACEP for about 20 years, with ACEP, Dr. Parker has been a member of both ACEP’s Illinois and Texas Board of Directors and chaired both chapters’ Education Committees. She served in a variety of leadership positions on the Illinois ACEP Board including President-Elect when she was elected to the national ACEP Board of Directors for the first time in 2009.

For national ACEP, Dr. Parker’s service includes work as Committee Chair on the Coding and Nomenclature Advisory Committee, Section Chair of the Section of Young Physicians, Board Liaison to the Clinical Emergency Data Registry (CEDR) Subcommittee, and Chair-Elect of the ACEP Foundation.

Dr. Parker has received awards for her leadership roles, including the AMA’s Foundation Leadership Award and the AMA’s Women’s Physician Congress Mentor Award. She also received the Bill B. Smiley Meritorious Service Award, the Illinois chapter’s highest honor.

Dr. Parker was elected to ACEP’s Board of Directors in 2009 and 2012. She earned her medical degree at Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago, and completed her internship and residency at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in El Paso, Texas.

Dr. Parker will assume ACEP’s presidency at next year’s Council Meeting in Las Vegas.