CPT Katey Osborne, MD

The ACEP Council meeting occurs annually before the ACEP Scientific Assembly, and this year, I was afforded the opportunity to serve as councilor for our Government Services Chapter. Advocacy is an aspect of medicine that I had yet to participate in, and I was enlightened by the experience. We have the unique opportunity to be part of a chapter that includes four past presidents who were eager to share their expertise on navigating the council meeting. The college put out the resolutions in September for any member to review and give comments on. As a group, councilors and alternate councilors met to discuss how to best advocate and represent our chapter as military emergency physicians – an aspect not often thought about! 

CAPT Sean Conley, DO

As I write this, we are in the midst of scoring all this year’s internship, residency and fellowship applications. In just the last couple months, Navy Medicine has begun converting dozens of MTF-based, BSO-18 billets from Naval Medical Readiness Training Centers to various Expeditionary Medicine platforms. These new billets include the Expeditionary Medical Unit and Expeditionary Resuscitative Surgical System, platforms built to address both the CNO’s North Star initiative, and the Navy Surgeon General’s Campaign Order “prioritizing support of distributed maritime operations, expeditionary advanced basing operations, and logistics operations in a contested environment”. But while there are increasingly more operational units for EM physicians to be assigned to, our relative manning has remained stagnant, even decreasing given our USMC/BSO-27 requirements and considering the fact EM traditionally fills more than our “fair share” of non-specialty specific billets, currently 32 with a stated goal of just 18. To this end, given the fixed number of in-service training spots we have, I’ll be working with the Corps Chief’s Office later in November to maximize the number of civilian training slots Navy EM has approved.

Calling all Government Services members! The nomination inbox is now open for our annual Fellowship in Leadership Development and Annual Awards which will be announced at the Government Services Symposium in April!  As always, our goal is to showcase the talent and hard work of our membership. To nominate yourself or a colleague, please find the required forms here on the GSACEP website and direct any questions to michelebyers@gsacep.org by 31 January, 2024. Take a look at the awards below, and we look forward to your nominations!

President-Elect, Secretary/Treasurer and Councilor positions are only open to attending members or graduating residents. The Resident Representative position is open to any non-graduating resident. The nomination form will close on Monday, November 27, 2023. Ballots will be released in February. Terms will begin at the Board Meeting that takes place during the Government Services Symposium taking place in San Diego, CA from 3-5 April, 2024. You can find descriptions of duties for the various roles in the GSACEP Bylaws here. A list of current Board Members can be found here. Not interested in running for a board position but still interested in getting involved? Any member in good standing (including attendings, medical students and residents) can get involved in GSACEP by joining a committee, a list of which, with descriptions, can be found here. Email our executive director, Michele Byers at michelebyers@gsacep.org for more information.

The Emergency Medicine Residents’ Association Government Services Committee is excited to announce that our member, Dr. Jacob Altholz, was elected during EMRA@ACEP23 to a two-year term as EMRA-Vice Speaker with auto accession to EMRA-Speaker. His goal is “to help facilitate the advocacy we, our colleagues, and our patients deserve.” In this role, and in tandem with the current Speaker, Dr. Altholz will oversee EMRA’s Representative Council and its committees, lead/coordinate the EMRA/ACEP Health Policy Academy, and help represent Emergency Medicine residents to other institutions such as the American Medical Association. In addition, he will serve on the EMRA Board of Directors and be the Board Liaison to EMRA’s Government Services and Toxicology committees.  

MAJ Joshua Oliver, MD

At the mid-point of my Army career, I am very grateful to be in my current position.  As the research director within a residency program, I have the opportunity to influence many young physicians and encourage them to pursue careers in academics. However, there were many times when my research career failed to launch. In my undergraduate and medical school education, I tried repeatedly to break into research without success. The problem was not a lack of effort. The problem was I did not know where to start. I needed a research mentor. That all changed during my intern year of residency when one of my faculty mentioned that a patient we were taking care of represented a great case report and that they were willing to mentor me through the process of writing it and submitting it for publication. As a result of that mentorship I learned: what type of cases are publishable, how to conduct a literature search, how to write scientifically, and how to submit a publication to a peer-reviewed journal.