My professional college beclowns itself

A fisking of a paranoid, ill-considered and frankly stupid idea a 9th grader would be ashamed to put forth. From the American College of Emergency Physicians ‘leadership’.

ACEP Clarifies Campaign Rules

By James M. Cusick, MD, FACEP

Chair, Candidate Forum Subcommittee of the ACEP Council

ACEP is a member-driven organization with a representative body of our peers – the ACEP Council – chosen through component bodies, including our chapters (1 representative per 100 members), our Sections of Membership, and other aligned organizations.

There follows some boilerplate language designed to get you to tune out.

None of this is aimed at the author, BTW, I have no doubt he was asked to write this and didn’t make this decision. This is about the College and a terrible decision that reflects poorly on it.

In addition, protections were incorporated into the rules to keep candidate interviews in ACEP publications. Our goal is to avoid candidates being put in the position of commenting on College policy without adequate preparation and to ensure that the campaign process is fair and equal for all candidates.

Wait, what? Candidate interviews for ACEP positions can only be in ACEP house organs? Is Stalin in charge? And for the rationale of “…being put in the position of commenting on College policy without adequate preparation and to ensure that the campaign process is fair and equal for all candidates” means ‘we intend to cover up for the candidates we really want to win, and the gaffes from the unworthy will be published in bold print, but rest assured if you’re our selection it’ll totally be glossed or even left out’.

Count on that. And that’s bollocks.

It’s the biggest horse shit this college has dumped in quite a while, and that isn’t how I want my college to represent itself because that’s how it represents me. Really, if you’re running for President of ACEP, you should be able to handle a non-coddled interview. Seriously, you’re going to say they’re too fragile to be interviewed ‘without adequate preparation…’ and then expect them to deal with legislators and their staffs who are dealing with skilled negotiators and people who know what they are there for? No thanks, I’d rather know the warts and all right up front, not filtered through the ACEP info-seive.

Certain candidates may unfairly benefit from coverage in non-ACEP publications, while some may be disadvantaged. In order to ensure a fair election, campaign questions and the vetting of candidates is the responsibility of ACEP, its Council and its Council Committees.

Umm, no, it’s the right of all of ACEP to know who’s running for office, what their unfiltered views are, and how they handle themselves with tough questions from tough questioners. It’s called campaigning, it’s not the pinewood derby. The very idea that ACEP can make an election totes fair by limiting the questions and answers to their own publications is laughable, were it not so tragically and pathetically sad. If you’re worried someone has an unfair advantage, Editorialize in ACEP Now, and their 150 avid readers can spread the word. But this entire approach is insulting to the intelligence and spirit of ER docs in our great nation.

(Any of you ER docs want to make sure your patients are only presented one at a time, with discreet illnesses and injuries, with a pre-selected choice card of correct diagnoses? No? It’s because we live and work in the real world, and that’s an absurd proposition, like this).

Also, and some may not be aware, but this is most likely a reaction to the excellent challenge by Dr. Greg Henry, ACEP Past-President and fixture asking for a robust questioning in his April 28, 2014 article ACEP, let’s set a real agenda. Read that article, and the kind of questions he wanted to ask, then you’ll see this in-house gag order for what it is: cover for their chosen.

If you’re a candidate for president and you buy into these rules, I know you’re not ready for the job.

If there are specific questions you would like asked of the candidates prior to the election, please send them to communications@acep.org. The Candidate Forum Subcommittee will consider them, the selected questions will be posed to candidates and their responses will be made public.

Really. You’re not only going to vet the answers and decide what goes out you’re going to control the questions, too? Here are a couple for you: a) boxers or briefs, and b) puppies or kittens?

I for one would like to have someone bathed in the knowledge of fights won and lost ask our presidential candidates hard questions about the tough choices facing ACEP, but we will absolutely not get it with this format. On purpose.

Hell, we’ll be lucky to find out if they like puppies.

via ACEP Clarifies Campaign Rules « The Central Line.