S A E M
Newsletter of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine November/December 2005 Volume XVII, Number 6
PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE Professionalism: What to Look for in Your Board of Directors
901 N. Washington Ave. Lansing, MI 48906-5137 (517) 485-5484 saem@saem.org www.saem.org
Research Fund Donation May Be Habit Forming! Brian J. Zink, MD University of Michigan Chair, SAEM Development Committee
Professionalism is the map and rudder that both guides and steers the leadership of an organization toward its desired goals. Even with that level of importance, the Glenn C. Hamilton, MD orientation and skill sets of a Board may evolve as an organization grows in size, matures its finances, or becomes more aware of external guidelines (eg. GAAP, new laws, etc.). Over the course of this year, the Board is reviewing a number of items and issues related to professionalism. The goal is both education of Board members regarding their broad responsibilities, and to implement policies and procedures that will ensure the long-term health and security of the Society. This certainly sounds like a daunting task, and to some degree it is, but it is a task made easier by other agencies that offer guidance in this potentially complex realm. One of these is BoardSource (www.boardsource.org), a 501c3 non-profit organization (just like SAEM) that supplies practical information, tools and best practices, training, and leadership development for Board members of non-profit organizations. Robert Schafermeyer, MD, to whom I am indebted, directed me to this organization early in my PresidentElect year. Participating as a member of a non-profit Board such as SAEM is serious work and worthy of preparatory study. Dr. Schafermeyer’s referral has served me many times over in these last several months, and is important to share with the membership. One of the most important references available through BoardSource is its Governance Series. This consists of nine booklets, each approximately 30 to 40 pages in length, that detail essential operational aspects to be addressed by each Board at some time during the life the organization. The titles of these nine monographs offer a better understanding as to the breadth of information supplied by this resource: 1. Ten Basic Responsibilities for Non-profit Boards 2. Financial Responsibilities for Non-profit Boards 3. Structures and Practices of Non-profit Boards 4. Fund Raising Responsibilities for Non-profit Boards 5. Legal Responsibilities for Non-profit Boards 6. The Non-profit Board’s Role in Setting and Advancing the Mission 7. The Non-profit Board’s Role in Planning and Evaluation
We all have nasty little habits. Usually by the time we are successful emergency physicians we have figured out how to conceal them, and can conduct them in private, with a good measure of guilt. Good luck with those. I want to focus on good habits. Like yoga every morning, or flossing your teeth, or putting your dishes in the dishwasher – and most importantly contributing to the SAEM Research Fund. When we started out in this development process, we had grand ambitions that the SAEM Research Fund might be built to a level of 8 million dollars or so, and that at this size we would have an endowment that could annually support around 6 to 8 research training grants and scholarly sabbaticals for academic emergency physicians – in perpetuity. We have spent about three years planning how to best do this, and a funny thing has happened along the way. With member contributions and major support from Society annual revenues, and a sound investment strategy, the SAEM Research Fund has grown to nearly 4.5 million dollars. Because of habitual contributing, we are more than half the way there! The Research Fund, as it grows, has been funding one Research Training Grant, one Institutional Research Training Grant, and a Scholarly Sabbatical Grant each year. In addition, we fund Medical Student Research Grants, Medical Student Emergency Medicine Interest Group Grants, and, with the generous support of Medtronic, have funded the EMS Research Fellowship for many years. The Research Training Grants are a two year commitment. As we chronicle each spring in the Newsletter, young investigators and emergency medicine faculty members are reaping the benefit of extramural funding to do groundbreaking research and build their academic careers. In time, our emergency patients will also benefit from this work. But this is not a time to rest on our laurels. Each year our Grants Committee has to make the agonizing decision of selecting one grant in each category, and must turn away other eminently fundable grant proposals. In order to make a real impact in the world of academic emergency medicine we must fund more investigators. That’s where habits come in. In the past year SAEM members contributed $22,260. Some were first time donors, but many were habitual donors – true believers in SAEM and advancing emergency medicine research. Those who contributed make up only 12% of the active membership. The average contribution was around $75. If we could inculcate the same giving habits in the rest of our active members, we could raise a quarter of a million dollars a year for the SAEM
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“to improve patient care by advancing research and education in emergency medicine”