AAEM Scientific Assembly - March 2-4, 2009 -- Student Track

Free Registration at the AAEM Scientific Assembly! This is the only Scientific Assembly in emergency medicine designed especially for board certified emergency physicians. The 15th annual conference is set for March 2-4, 2009, in Phoenix. In 2000, AAEM added its first “resident track” to the conference, and students planned their own session in 2007. These sessions continue to grow and receive enthusiastic reviews. We’re planning even more for 2009. The student track will be held on Sunday, March 1^st, from 1:00 to 4:00PM, and it is free! Registration for the Scientific Assembly itself requires a $50 refundable deposit for members and $100 for non-members which will go towards 2009 dues.

The student section has planned a fun and informative day. The first two hours will be geared towards the application process. We will have a program director panel comprised of osteopathic and allopathic physicians from various regions of the US. During the third hour, we are excited to announce that Dr. Joe Lex from Temple University will be lecturing about a surviving a long career in emergency medicine. In the final hour, Dr. Bentley Bobrow from the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona, will be speaking about current research in resuscitation.

http://www.aaem.org/education/scientificassembly/

Wilderness Medicine Elective

As many of you may have noticed in the e-mail earlier this week, YES - Wilderness Medicine Elective (MedS 534) will be offered this spring.

Unfortunately, we still don't know if the EM elective will be offered this year, so you might want to consider taking this course instead.

The Seattle EM Residency

Its official!!! Our Emergency Medicine residency is in the process of being built here in Seattle!!! No more rumors, money is changing hands, people are being hired and major recruitment efforts have begun!

I spoke with Dr. Fiona Gallahue, the new EM residency director and an attending EM doc at Harborview, about our upcoming program. She is very excited, along with many other Harborview EM attendings, about the momentum we are building. As many of you know, Dr. Copass has retired from clinical duties at Harborview and the EM Residency is moving forward with full support of the UW and Harborview communities. There are still a lot of changes in store and it will not always be smooth sailing, but it is happening. As a past leader of the EMIG here at UW and one of those that worked hard to get this issue noticed while I was attending UW, I want to say thanks! Good work EMIG students on helping to accentuate this issue with the school administration and your effort is now being rewarded!

Below is the email Dr. Gallhue sent out to the EM community in an attempt to broaden the recruitment effort for new EM faculty. I thought I would share it with you all! From what I understand, the first application year will be 2011, so all you E-08's will be the first to apply if things stay on track!

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Sent: Dec 3, 2008 12:16 PM
Subject: The University of Washington is recruiting

Dear CORD community:

The University of Washington School of Medicine, Division of Emergency Medicine announces plans to build an emergency medicine residency program, and is seeking highly motivated, board prepared/certified academic oriented Emergency Medicine physicians to join in this exciting venture. The new Division Head will be Susan Stern, and she will be starting in that position in this Spring of '09. Attached is an advertisement. If you know of interested faculty or graduating residents, please forward this to them. Sue may be contacted directly by e-mail.

Thank you for your attention.
Fiona Gallahue, M.D.
Assistant Professor
Harborview Medical Center

Emergency Medicine Rotations

With the recent clerkship conferences for 2nd-year students, we thought we'd try to preempt a mass of e-mails re: when to do your emergency medicine rotation. Like everything else in medical school and life, it's sort of up to you.

Dr. Strote suggested that students not worry too much about ensuring that the 3rd year elective spot is last in order to take your EM rotation during that time so you can do an away rotation the first slot of 4th year. This is what was typically recommended in the past.

Instead, feel free to wait and make EM at UWMC or HMC your first rotation of the 4th year. You should also think about doing an away rotation after your 4th year EM rotation. The away rotation doesn't necessarily have to be completed prior to your ERAS but it can help to get a letter of recommendation and is recommended.

Still, in the past, Dr. Strote and others have suggested that students complete the required EM rotation AND an away EM rotation prior to submitting ERAS.

Also, the gurus in charge of arranging our track schedules are aware that EM folks typically want their 3rd year elective period last so if you say that you're planning on EM, you might have a better chance at getting it. Just a tip.