2024 Rural Section Elections: Meet the Candidates

Term:  October 2024-October 2026

Position:  Chair-Elect                                                                               

Candidate: Steven Haywood, MD, FACEP

As a physician raised in rural Appalachia and now living in rural Mississippi, I have experienced firsthand the unique challenges rural communities face in accessing quality healthcare. All of my family and extended family live in rural America, and I believe they, along with every rural community, deserve the highest level of emergency medical care.

I have been an active member and officer of this section, facilitating and hosting multiple podcasts advocating for rural emergency medicine. I have also had the honor of serving as Chair of the SAEM Virtual Presence Committee. My career has spanned both large urban and small rural EM residencies, giving me a broad perspective on the needs of diverse communities. Now, as core faculty for a small, rural EM residency, I am focused on training residents to provide physician-led care for underserved rural populations.

As Chair of the ACEP Rural Section, I will continue to advocate for our rural populations and support the physicians who care for these patients.

Position: Secretary

Candidate: Gary Gaddis, MD, PhD, FACEP

As a "lifetime academic" who has attained the ranks of Professor of Emergency Medicine, and a former Endowed Chair, I am a "strange bird" among those who deliver medical care to Missourians living in a rural locale. However, at age 67, I have found that it was not good for me to retire yet. Indeed, at the urging of a mentee, I have "gotten off the bench and back into the game", by a return to practice in a rural environment (rural Northwest Missouri).  I find that being a member of a medical care team is useful for my personal satisfaction and happiness. However, upon beginning a rural practice, I have gained new insights into the challenges and opportunities that rural emergency medicine can present. I believe the most challenging issue we fight is the growing refusal of doctors at tertiary referral hospitals to engage with us in the management of their complex patients whose illnesses are outside our true scope of practice when their institution cannot accept these patients in transfer. I believe, as a member of the Governing Council of the Academic Physicians Section of the AMA, and as the author of nearly 10 resolutions that have been adopted by the AMA House of Delegates, that joining forces with the AMA may be a fruitful way forward to work with our non-emergency physician colleagues towards a solution that will not permit them to basically abandon their patients, at times when their institution cannot accept their patient for transfer. This is but one of the challenges we face, and I won't enumerate them here. However, I now have "fire in my belly" to help solve some of the challenges and problems we all face in rural locales, and I humbly ask for your support in becoming Secretary of our section.

Position:  Councillor

Candidate: Ashley Weisman, MD

My name Is Ashley Weisman and I am an emergency physician in the University of Vermont Health Network.  I have been involved in the rural ACEP section for the past 9 years and am a dedicated rural clinician, educator, and administrator. I have worked in rural settings from indigenous sites in Arizona and remote Alaska, to northern Vermont and New York. I have a very fulfilling rural-academic hybrid practice that includes a busy clinical practice in two rural critical access hospitals, a rural sole community hospital, and an academic tertiary care center. My administrative and academic work focuses on improving rural emergency care through education, operational innovations, and helping rural and tertiary hospitals understand each other and work together. I have helped to bring interdisciplinary simulation, tele-respiratory therapy, robust POCUS systems, and strong ABEM physicians to numerous rural hospitals. I have served as medical director for a rural critical access emergency department. I am passionate about bringing medical students and residents to rural sites and run electives for medical students, emergency medicine, and family medicine residents to grow the rural workforce and expose learners to the incredible practice of rural EM. I am also relentlessly optimistic. I would be honored and excited to bring my experience and positivity to the ACEP council meeting representing the rural section.