Artists Among Us: ACEP's 2021 Annual Report features original art submitted to the 2020 and 2021 HeART of Emergency Medicine Galleries. This piece, “Golden Goddess” by Sanché Mabins, MD, PGY-2, (@mabinssanche) as painted to showcase that although women continue to fight for equality, their impact on society cannot be denied. She contrasted the hijab with a bold yellow and crown to exemplify the undeniable presence and necessity of women in our society.
It is said that the opposite of inclusion is not exclusion; the opposite of inclusion is incomplete. This year, we again committed to making our organization and our specialty more diverse, more equitable, and more complete.
Diversity Committee Created
At the close of 2021, the Board of Directors created a new ACEP committee to prioritize and address issues related to equity and inclusion. President Schmitz and Past-President Rosenberg are working together to establish this committee in 2022.
New Initiative:Equity Matters
ACEP leaders are working on an exciting new collaboration between CMSS and ACGME called “Equity Matters.” While the goal is to drive change within graduate medical education (GME), ACEP will be developing its own “capstone” project to achieve health equity through increasing physician workforce diversity and creating clinical learning environments that are safe, inclusive, and equitable.
Diversity Section Expands Mentoring Initiative
ACEP’s Diversity, Inclusion and Health Equity Section launched a national mentorship program to advance racial and ethnic diversity in EM leadership. From March 2020 to December 2021, the program fostered 247 mentoring connections, including 100 that are ongoing.
Representation in ACEP Publications
ACEP’s three flagship publications – ACEP Now, Annals of Emergency Medicine and JACEP Open – have all taken specific action to expand diversity of authors and topics.
- In 2021, ACEP Now won the APEX Award of Excellence for Writing, Regular Departments and Features for its “Equity Equation” column. Equity Equation columns focused on microaggressions, gender discrimination and health inequalities during the pandemic were some of the magazine’s most-read articles in 2020.
- Annals of Emergency Medicine curated a special issue of articles called “Equity in Healthcare.” These articles, all currently available without a subscription, showcase the important research being done to address equity in patient care, support a diverse workforce and foster diversity in research.
- JACEP Open formed a diversity taskforce to support the publication’s “commitment to bringing diversity, inclusion, and equity to all of its editorial activities.” The journal is collaborating with ACEP’s International Section to increase its international authors, editors and reviewers.
