A Message from the NCCEP President

For my entire professional career, I have been an ACEP member. I suspect many of you are like me and pay your dues in order to receive something valuable: educational opportunities, networking with colleagues, and advocacy for our specialty. It is my hope that throughout my term as your president I can deliver the value that you expect. Having been in the role for a short time, there appears to be no shortage of opportunities in the third category; advocacy for both patients and physicians.

The phrase “old ways won’t open new doors” will become more applicable in 2019 as our state attempts a new approach to Medicaid reform. It will be imperative that we continue to work with our state health leaders collaboratively to achieve cost-effective care, maintain a highly-skilled emergency medicine work force, and work to illuminate and eliminate the barriers that make health care delivery difficult in today’s times. The ED and Medicaid are truly the safety net of health care. It is essential that we are part of the conversation as reform occurs in this arena.

We have an incredible leadership team at NCCEP and together we will continue to work on many issues. Legal protections for emergency physicians who are under continued scrutiny remains a focus of some of the early work we have already begun this summer. The continuous concern around North Carolina Certificate of Need (CON) statute will again be a topic for our next legislative session. As North Carolina continues to be a very rural state, maintaining adequate subspecialty coverage for our patients is critical.

Your North Carolina chapter continues to grow to one of the largest in the United States. This is comforting as many of the issues before us will require more than just our executive leadership to respond. Now is not the time to remain quiet but to engage. I would encourage all of you to participate at whatever level you can.

I look forward to the year ahead of us! The value of your membership is only limited by engagement, and I am excited to lead this team. There is no time like the present.

D. Matthew Sullivan, MD, FACEP