Letter from the Chair

Due to time constraints at our meeting in Las Vegas I was not able to give my transition speech as new incoming chair. I wanted to send this out to you all to give you an idea of what my plans are for this section moving forward.

First off I want to thank you all for the opportunity to be a part of this section ever since I was a new emergency medicine resident. Both the leadership and members over the years have been great colleagues and advisors, who are all as successful as they are diverse in their careers in tactical and law enforcement medicine.

I want to thank Brian Springer who is now stepping down after serving a very productive and inspiring tenure as section chair. He has been a great mentor who has taught me a lot. I am honored to have him pass me the torch to continue to lead and escalate this section during my time as chair.

I also want to recognize our other section officers who have been instrumental in our sections success. They have continued to work hard to make ours one of the most recognized and awarded sections in the past few years. I know that I will need their help and support moving forward.

As chair, one of my goals is I want to continue to keep the momentum and progress we have had on multiple projects our section already has been working on. So many times when there is a changing of the guard, projects and goals leave with the outgoing leadership. We need to continue our pursuit of getting TALEM recognized as a unique specialty in medicine, whether that is as a formal subspecialty or other form. Formally getting our foot in the door of the house of medicine is something we have been pursuing for a while now. I also want to continue to maintain our recognition we continue to earn among ACEP. ACEP has recently approved submissions from this section regarding tactical care, as well as recognize our section every year with awards. The personalities that pursue a field like TALEM naturally draw in competitive individuals with a desire to win. It is a point of pride for myself and the members of our section that we continue to seek these accomplishments from the college.

My second mission for the section is extending our sections reach outside of ACEP. We are a distinctive section with members who have vast and unique experiences and knowledge to offer to the rest of the medical community. For so long we have used this section to update and educate primarily only our section members. We recently had a vote to open the section up to non ACEP members to be able to attend our section talks as well as access our website. To my excitement this passed at our section meeting. We will be reaching out soon about how non ACEP members can join and what the criteria are. I encourage all of you to include any colleagues you work with in the field who are not ACEP members to join our great section.

Another important target I would like to aim for is increasing membership participation. We have a large section, and recently participation from non “regulars” has been improving. Some of the monthly talks have drawn in some large groups. I want to take this growing involvement from the section members and build on it. We want to continue to highlight what our members are doing and continue to include both experienced members as well as young new members. This means expanding our medical student and resident outreach, which includes involvement in the section officer positions. I would like to start off on the right foot with this by trying to fill as many if not all the positions we can have for this section, including some new ones. If anyone has a particular interest in this, please let me know.

This section has been my home ever since I was a new resident, and it has led to some of the greatest experiences in my career through the connections I have made and members I have met. I consider it an honor to serve as your section chair, and appreciate the opportunity.

Best,
Keegan Bradley, MD
ACEP Tactical and Law Enforcement Medicine Section Chair