PRESIDENT’S REPORT
Timothy Cheslock, DO, FACOEP
THE FUTURE OF OUR PROFESSION
A
s I write this article, the results of the 2023 Match have just been released and the internet is flooded with tweets and comments, opinions of many varieties as to what is happening to our profession. What went wrong? Why so many unmatched slots? Is EM no longer appealing to medical students? I do not profess to have the answers to all these questions and the opinions I express here are truly my own. Where does the future of our profession lie? One of the foremost issues we need to confront head on is what is our current state? Based on conversations with EM physicians all over the country it’s clear that our state of affairs is not good. Many departments are functioning out of a physical space severely restricted by boarding patients, are chronically understaffed by nursing, and lack the resources to deal with the daily deluge of patients redirected from primary care offices, urgent cares, and other settings where the on-site providers just don’t feel comfortable addressing what may or may not be a more complex problem. Hospitals were not prepared to deal with the issues that led us to our current state and either chose not to or have deflected in many instances back to us as to how we are going to fix the situation and still meet metrics that were designed for a fully operational department that
4 | THE PULSE SPRING 2023
...THE ONLY WAY TO MAKE OUR SPECIALTY BETTER IS TO BE PART OF THE SOLUTION!” is adequately staffed. Many of the problems we deal with are the result of the hospital failing to do its part to mitigate the situation due to cost or inconvenience. Regardless, it is our current work environment in many instances. Does this appeal to you? Now to be fair it is not like that everywhere. In many cases it’s better, in some cases even worse. Either way, the work environment has deteriorated for most of us to some degree over the last few years. The pandemic has forever changed the landscape of medicine. Many practices outside of EM have seemed to go entirely virtual. Sometimes coming to the ED is the only way patients get true human interaction and touch. Selling the profession to a future generation of physicians within the confines of that landscape is challenging. It is not something you can hide either. Students see it as
they rotate through our departments. They are very astute in picking up on the frustrations in a department. Hopefully they are still able to garner educational value and pearls to take forward in their education, because even in harsh environments, learning can take place. Some students thrive in a challenging environment and those are the ones that we seek to match and we have! Over 2500 successful matches for EM took place this year. What about the match itself? Are there inherent problems with the software, the algorithm? Are programs or students changing they way they submit their lists? These are great questions that have come up, but ones that I cannot shed any light on. It would be interesting to conduct a study and see if any of that had a bearing on the results. Are communications during interviews between students and