As the EMRA Board member representing all residents to the ACEP Board of Directors, I am frequently asked how our two organizations work together. While both EMRA and ACEP are independent, we work together to move the practice of emergency medicine forward and to support emergency medicine physicians and physicians in training.
When you join EMRA, you also receive complimentary membership to ACEP, which means you get membership to ACEP Sections. An ACEP Section is a group of members who are interested in a particular area of emergency medicine (eg, critical care, geriatrics, toxicology, ultrasound, etc.). The ACEP Sections meet virtually and in-person at the annual Scientific Assembly to discuss relevant topics, network, and provide mentorship. All EMRA members are automatically enrolled in the Young Physician Section (YPS), which is a pretty cool way to interact with more recent graduates and younger faculty. In addition to YPS membership, each EMRA member receives another section membership FREE (not a bad additional value since it is otherwise about $20 for a resident or medical student to a join a section).
Many of the ACEP Sections have overlap with our own EMRA Committees and Divisions (C&D), which are a great way to get involved in topics that interest you. A lot of EMRA's events and publications occur through our C&Ds. For example, through the EMRA Education Committee, we have put together amazing programming like the EMRA 20 in 6 Resident Lecture Competition and EMRA Quiz Show. Through the Wilderness Medicine Division, we hosted our first ever MedWAR.
The ACEP Representative also oversees EMRA Representatives to ACEP Committees. Committees in ACEP are given objectives by the ACEP Board of Directors and essentially complete the work of the organization (similar to how EMRA's C&Ds work). To get on an ACEP Committee, you must apply, and there is a dedicated EMRA Representative to each of those committees. This is an essential way we represent residents within the work that ACEP does. Becoming an EMRA Representative to an ACEP committee is a selection process and involves an application. Stay tuned for details on the 2017-2018 application cycle, and if you are interested please email aceprep@emra.org.
You can see that while we are two different organizations, we do have similar goals and interests, and therefore do have some overlap. Ideally the EMRA Representatives collaborate with the EMRA C&D Chairs. For example, our EMRA Representative to the ACEP Wellbeing Committee is working with the EMRA Wellness Committee to improve the Wellness Booth at ACEP's Scientific Assembly. This is collaboration at its finest, and there are so many more opportunities for this type of cross-organization partnership!