President’s Blog October 2016

Excitement, honour, utter privilege, trepidation, commitment, passion, team, pride, service! These are a just a few of the words that have tumbled around in my head over the past few months since you elected me to be your next RCEM President.

In the coming months I will add to all those words ( in a more structured fashion) to help describe how we will navigate through the next 3 years. For now, I hope my interview with the EMJ Supp Editor will suffice. It is an amazing honour to follow in the footsteps of some incredible leaders of our specialty (Ellis, Kirby, Williams, Little, Cutting, Shalley, Evans, Anderson, MacKechnie, McGowan, Wardrope, Heyworth, Clancy, and Mann to name a few). I must of course pay tribute to my immediate predecessor, Cliff Mann, who has done such an excellent job in his 3 year tenure. We owe him a huge debt of gratitude for his hard work, commitment and leadership. We wish him well in his new post with NHS England. More valediction will follow in due course.

By the time you read this, you will have seen my keynote address at Bournemouth (if not, you will find it on the new RCEM website – thanks to Luke O’Reilly at the College for a superb job on the revamped website). Please do contribute to the online questionnaire if you are a member or fellow, so we can have feedback as we construct our new strategy. There is much to do in the next 3 years and with colleagues on the Executive, Council, various RCEM committees as well as staff at Breams I am sure we will achieve great things. We will set ambitious objectives that are aimed at supporting you as our members, driving our specialty and our College forwards and ultimately in providing the very best care for our patients. Thank you again for the wonderful opportunity to represent you as your President!

Dr Tajek Hassan
President, The Royal College of Emergency Medicine
@RCEMPresident