KK: What are your goals for your presidency?

JR: There are three things:

1. The first is the whole mental health issue. We can’t wait for others to fix this. We’re just going to have to step up and do it ourselves, like we have so many other times before. Whenever there’s a gap, emergency physicians step forward and fix it and always have, whether it be ultrasound, toxicology, or EMS. We are often the only ones developing creative solutions.
2. Another is burnout, but I really think that’s the wrong word. Physician wellness and resiliency seem much more fitting. We are being robbed of our opportunity to spend time with patients, to have that truly full patient-doctor relationship that is crucial and that patients are hungry for, that doctors are begging for. When you’re not allowed to have that time, you feel like you’re not fully doing your job. That may start to make you feel resentful. That resentment carries on from day to day until it manifests itself as burnout. I really think we need to take back control of our profession. We can’t continue to allow regulators and administrators and legislators to control our profession. The only way we can regain it is through leadership. We must be very strategic and intentional about developing emergency physicians to take their rightful place in the C-suite, in the statehouse, and on Capitol Hill.
3. I would begin to lay the groundwork for a leadership development program, not confined to the College, in a variety of venues, whether politics or administration. I want to start thinking much broader and really infiltrate emergency physicians throughout that whole broad spectrum of leadership in health care, and I believe that is our best strategy to begin to regain control of our profession.