Revised June 2021, June 2018, October 2012
Reaffirmed September 2005
Originally approved September 1999
Recognizing that significant changes are occurring in the physician workforce and in the financing of graduate medical education (GME), the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) believes that:
- Well-educated and experienced emergency physicians provide the best and most cost-effective emergency health care.
- Emergency medicine residency programs provide the best and only method of training future emergency physicians.
- Emergency medicine residency programs must have adequate, predictable, and stable sources of funding to ensure appropriate training of residency trained emergency medicine specialists.
- Emergency medicine residency programs train physicians to evaluate and respond to individual patient crises and major manmade and natural disasters on a 24-hour basis. All payers and the public directly or indirectly benefit from this service.
- Federal GME funding should be made through a non-discretionary appropriations process. Emergency medicine should have flexibility in the use of these funds in order to train residents to practice in non-urban areas.
- Any government advisory or planning body examining or developing policy relating to GME reform, including financing and workforce issues, should include representation and input from the specialty of emergency medicine.
