President's MessageApril 2025
Colleagues and friends, I am excited to work for you this year! As we work through the latter parts of the legislative session, we are very busy watching bills and intervening when advisable to protect our patients and our practice. While our group of senior leaders is actively communicating to plan, respond and coordinate, we are doing so on behalf of all Emergency Medicine practices in Texas. We continue to want to hear from our members, particularly about any thoughts, concerns or solutions you may see so we can do the most accurate work representing your interests. We had a good meeting in Austin this month, which was productive and, as always, seeing our members renewed my drive and energy to serve! My comments during the incoming President speech in Austin were brief and targeted: there is great strength in our group, but we must stay focused on our goals. The core unit of our work is the Physician at bedside, as the servant leader of the patient care team, providing expert, compassionate and effective care to our patients. There are many, many diverse factors that affect this, as well as varying perceptions of what success looks like for Physicians. I respect and appreciate the variety in our medical practice and the sanctity of each individual patient-Physician bond. While we have many recognized strengths, as well as opportunities and threats, our greatest need is to be internally vigilant. We are generally good at this in our medical practice, but we must be equally good at this with our professional interactions. We must focus on our core goal of protecting our patients by nurturing, maturing and protecting our practice of medicine. Our success depends on each other. We must positively encourage, coalesce together, build each other up, and be genuinely transparent about our agendas. We will achieve more, together, despite these interesting and polarizing times. I look forward to continuing the traditions of TCEP, and ACEP, in bringing us together to advocate for our practice and our patients. Respectfully, AJ Kirk, MD, FACEP |
