Show Notes
On this episode of ACEP Frontline, Dr. Ryan Stanton chats with ACEP President Dr. Tony Cirillo to discuss a major advocacy victory that reinforces one of the core principles of emergency medicine: physician-led emergency care. The conversation explores the collaborative efforts between ACEP, state chapters, the American Medical Association, and the American College of Surgeons that resulted in updated ACS Committee on Trauma Level IV trauma center standards requiring physician staffing in emergency departments. Dr. Cirillo shares the behind-the-scenes story of how relationship building, strategic advocacy, and persistent engagement helped shape this important outcome, while highlighting the critical role state chapters played in defending physician-led care. The discussion also examines Kentucky's legislative efforts surrounding physician staffing, the importance of maintaining emergency medicine as a physician-led specialty, and why advocacy often succeeds through collaboration rather than confrontation. This episode provides a firsthand look at how ACEP works every day to protect patients, support emergency physicians, and advance the specialty, often through efforts that members may not see but benefit from every day.
More from ACEP Frontline
In this episode of ACEP Frontline, Dr. Ryan Stanton is joined by Dr. Peter Pruitt, chair of the ACEP Research Forum for ACEP26 in Chicago, to discuss the growth of emergency medicine research and the opportunities available to clinicians, residents, and aspiring researchers. He highlights this year’s Research Forum programming and shares practical insights from his session on conducting high-quality retrospective chart reviews, including how to avoid common pitfalls, generate meaningful research questions, and build a foundation for future practice-changing studies.
In this special edition episode of ACEP Frontline, Dr. Ryan Stanton is joined by Dr. Danya Khoujah, co-host of ACEP's Critical Decisions in Emergency Medicine podcast, to discuss ACEP's new Emergency Medicine Audio Network. They discuss their own podcast series as well as the rest of the network's audio offerings and the importance of being able to access clinical updates through different mediums.
In this episode of ACEP Frontline, Dr. Ryan Stanton is joined by Dr. Sean Ochsenbein to reflect on the Hurricane Helene flooding that inundated Unicoi County Hospital in Erwin, Tennessee, forcing a rooftop evacuation of patients and staff. He shares the leadership, disaster response, and emergency management lessons learned during the unprecedented flood, detailing how healthcare teams, first responders, and military rescue crews worked together to safely evacuate everyone from the hospital amid rapidly rising floodwaters.
In this Frontline Weekend Playlist episode, hear Dr. Andrew French, Vice President and Physician Executive for Quality, Safety, and Clinical Operations at Centura Health, present "Critical Connections, Leadership in Emergency Medicine" from the Fourth Annual Leadership Symposium and EM: High Risk, Do Not Miss Conference in Beaver Creek, Colorado. Dr. French reframes leadership as influence rather than title or authority, and argues that emergency medicine, with its daily demands for adaptability, quick decision making, and managing a huge range of perspectives under pressure, is the ideal training ground for building that skill. He walks through a practical framework for developing leadership on shift, starting with a simple personal leadership statement and building toward leading teams and larger systems, and makes the case that emergency physicians are uniquely positioned to lead change across the broader healthcare system. The throughline is that leadership is not acquired knowledge but a skill built through repeated practice, and the emergency department is the best laboratory available for building it.
In this episode of ACEP Frontline, Dr. Ryan Stanton is joined by Dr. Chirag Shah and Dr. John Casey to discuss updates in the emergency department management of asthma and COPD, as well as the latest ACEP Point-of-Care tools designed to support bedside clinical decision-making. They review emerging technologies such as vibrating mesh nebulizers, evolving evidence around respiratory support strategies, and practical recommendations for medications, imaging, ventilation, and disposition to help emergency physicians deliver evidence-based care for patients with acute respiratory exacerbations.