3 minute read
THE ON-DECK CIRCLE G. Joseph Beirne, DO, FACOEP-D
by ACOEP
Hello to the ACOEP family! This will be my first official article for The Pulse as president of ACOEP. In my summer article titled “The Path to Success,” I addressed how ACOEP is a family that has made my personal life and career more rewarding. The last line of that article was “The first step on the path to success begins and ends with all of us together. Come along with me and take the journey. I promise you it will be exciting!” As incoming president, my journey begins with you, our ACOEP family.
After much deliberation and discussion, the ACOEP Board of Directors made the difficult decision to move the 2021 Scientific Assembly to an all-virtual format. It was our hope in the spring and early summer that the pandemic numbers would improve. But as we all are aware, the Delta variant has made an in-person conference impossible. The safety of our members and their families is paramount, and we felt that meeting in person was too risky. Furthermore, we recognized that many of our members are subject to travel restrictions in order to maintain safe staffing levels in their emergency departments and precluding them from attending in person. For these reasons, we made the decision to move to a virtual conference.
As I begin my presidency, it is my hope that our ACOEP family expands by bringing in new members. It is my intent to increase our transparency with the membership, so that our college functions as a team. When I was elected to the Board of Directors in 2014, I recognized the importance of my role as a Board member. Now as your president, I am responsible for leading this college over the next two years. I look forward to representing our ACOEP family on the national stage and maintaining our high standard as an icon in emergency medicine. However, I cannot do that alone.
Our Board of Directors is a diverse group of dedicated physicians with sincere interests in making our college the best it can be. We represent you, our membership. However, our entire college is part of this leadership team. All members–attending, residents, students–are a vital part of our team, and our future success depends upon each of you. As president, and with our Board, I ask for your help in keeping ACOEP at the forefront of emergency medicine.
My vision for the next two years is not just maintaining ACOEP but growing our organization into the best specialty college in the AOA and emergency medicine. That vision requires you, our members, to be actively involved as part of the team. I want ACOEP to help its members develop their professional and leadership skills in emergency medicine. With so many talented people in our ranks, I am confident that there are members who will step up to become part of our future leadership, and that all members will have opportunities to help steer the growth of our college.
As your president, it is my responsibility to foster and improve this creative environment as we expand into the future. It is a responsibility that I take seriously and will, to the best of my ability, work to achieve. I know everyone is familiar with the acronym “TEAM: Together Everyone Achieves More.” Together, our college will be successful and thrive. That is my pledge to you. As our journey on the path to success begins, we have taken the first step. Now, let’s make the rest of the journey unforgettable and one for the ages!
