Incoming ACEP president Angela Gardner (pictured with Chuck Grassley (R-IA) talks about lobbying, legislation and her blue sky goals for the American College of Emergency Physicians

Paul Begala, a democratic strategist and CNN political contributor, is set to headline the ACEP Scientific Assembly in Boston next week. The former Clinton consultant makes no apologies about his health care politics, stating in a recent piece in the Washington Post that "it would be a bitter disappointment if health reform did not include a public option."

Nick Jouriles never thought he’d be the ACEP president. “Not in my wildest dreams,” he said in a recent interview. But this month will mark the end of his tenure at that very position. 

 

They call me stan.

 

I was born in a factory, hand-made by skilled workers who painstakingly assembled all of my intricate parts into a life-sized replica of a human being. I talk, blink, and breathe; I can belch and vomit; my pupils react to light; my heart pumps; my bowels gurgle; my lungs respire. I can take an endotracheal tube, IV lines, a chest tube, a foley catheter, and CPR. You see, I’m a high-fidelity, computer-based, medical simulation mannequin. And they call me Stan. Let me tell you my story.

1994. Some emergency physicians were still in high school back when NBC’s show “ER” debuted, introducing the world to CBCs, difibrilators and George Clooney’s five o’clock shadow. Fifteen years, five Emmys and gallons of fake blood later that staple of Thursday night programming finally came off the air this spring. Twelve EPs, from a textbook writer to an ED chairman, reflect  on how the show impacted their lives and changed an entire specialty.

How One Urban Academic Center Successfully Implementing a Comprehensive ED Information System

Maj. John Pryor, a trauma surgeon and army reservist, was killed by mortar fire in December while serving his second tour in Iraq.

Peer Review with Christopher Carpenter, MD
 

“When a doctor says, ‘I don’t know,’ it is rarely a sign of weakness or ignorance. More often it’s a sign of a physician who knows and appreciates the limits of our science and is willing to be a partner. It’s an olive branch of commiseration about what is not, and a hopeful readiness for what is.”
-Excerpt from Hippocrates’ Shadow (Scribner, $26)