Note from Section Chair

As Section Chair, I would like to welcome our membership to our 2019 Spring/Summer Edition of the Wellness Section Newsletter.  As of this writing, our Section is very strong with 294 active members including some non-ACEP subscription membership. We will continue to grow as we meet our objectives through 2020 and beyond.

Let me introduce to you our Wellness Section Leadership team and say thank you for all of their hard work and commitment to our Section and its objectives.  I want to especially thank our immediate Past Chair, Dr Pamela Ross, for her leadership, mentoring, and always having the “spark” to light our inner strengths; Chair-Elect, Dr. Randy Sorge for his enthusiasm and being there; Wellness Section Newsletter Editor/Secretary, Dr. Michelle Caskey for her passion and organizational skills; Section Councilor, Dr. Susan Haney for her deep advocacy; Alternate Councilors: Dr. Matthew Wong, Dr. Angelica McParlin, and Dr. Kristen Nordenhoz for their excitement; EMRA Representative, Dr. Jayram Pai for his support; Staff Liaison, Joseph Kennedy for his much welcomed guidance and support; and, Board Liaison, Dr. Debra Perina for her guidance and listening ear.  Please reach out to the leadership team through the amazing interactive ACEP EngagED platform. 

Here are just some of our achievements: 1) Our section partnered with the Well-Being Committee for a successful Wellness Week, thank you to those who participated; 2) Our section was involved in the ACEP BalancED inaugural Wellness Conference through its planning committee involvement, and being speakers at the very successful activity this past February.  We look forward to being a resource for future wellness activities; 3) Creating polling questions for the EngagED platform, the CWO question resulting in the highest response rate from members.  (4) This initiated putting together a soon-to-be released narrative response analysis report and an online module (ACEP Wellness: Shifting Systems toward Health) by its author, Katherine Sanders, PhD, as segue to her follow-up presentation at our upcoming annual section meeting at ACEP19.  This was all made possible through a Grant applied for and awarded by GE Medical.  And lastly, (5) we have taken our new logo live, surrounded by a protective banner ensuring all aspects of career and personal wellness, not only by nurturing the “self” but also through promoting a healing work environment. We also look to create a Wellness section T-shirt to be proudly worn.

I continue to try and personally respond to EngagED postings when appropriate and want to make sure that our members feel that the Wellness Section creates a physiological safe environment which encourages connection, interaction and acknowledgement of all of our “special pieces” of the puzzle to wellness and balance.  We continue to evolve into a community for creating future partners at the table for true medical culture change in the field of Emergency Medicine.

Thank you for this outstanding opportunity to light the pathway ahead. We are active and we are strong.

Be Well and Stay Inspired,

Randall M. Levin, MD, FACEP