Twelve individual CME activities are available through Emergency Medicine News each year.

While emergency care 25 years ago was provided largely by family practitioners and internists who moonlighted in the ED, today’s emergency physicians are largely residency trained, board-certified specialists who provide episodic acute care for every disease process known to medicine. Because emergency medicine is a relatively new specialty, the discipline has only in recent years forged a place for itself through peer-reviewed literature specific to its practice. Formerly relying on the research of other specialists, emergency physicians today are academicians, researchers, teachers, and clinicians making important contributions.

Emergency physicians are like no other specialty, providing care under unique circumstances, to patients often in emotional and physical distress. They are superb diagnosticians, devising treatment plans not only with little or no patient history, but under extreme pressure, with little time, and often with limited resources at all times of the day or night. The patient population includes the unborn fetus to the nursing home patient. Because emergency physicians treat myriad disease processes and injuries, their demand for quality medical education specific to their practice is vital. With the enormous amount of new research and clinical information becoming available on emergency medical care, it is a challenge even for the most dedicated physician to keep up with new developments. In addition to dealing with this growth of information, these specialists have to contend with an expansion of cumbersome administrative activities for governmental agencies, managed health care plans, and third-party payers.

Emergency Medicine News is in its 27^th year of successfully providing essential information on emergency care of adults and children. The chairman of Emergency Medicine News’ Editorial Board, James R. Roberts, MD, is a world-renowned expert in emergency medicine and toxicology. Dr. Roberts has assembled more than 25 nationally and internationally recognized experts to serve on the publication’s Editorial Board. This Editorial Board provides input on article topics that are of vital interest to the target audience. Periodic searches and review of the world’s peer-reviewed medical literature aid the Editor and Editorial Board in selecting article topics that provide information needed by the target audience. In addition, the publication will conduct a general readership survey this year to better assess the target audience’s needs. The survey results will be compiled and reviewed by the Editor and Editorial Board in planning future CME activities within the journal.

Dr. Roberts’ comprehensive, clinical column, InFocus, has appeared in Emergency Medicine News for the past 22 years, and will be the designated CME activity for the publication. Dr. Roberts’ columns are highly respected, often requested for reprints, and are the linchpin of the Emergency Medicine News, itself well regarded by its readers, which rate it no. 1 in readership over other emergency medicine journals, including Annals of Emergency Medicine, Academic Emergency Medicine, and the Journal of Emergency Medicine, all peer-reviewed journals. Previous columns have been published in a textbook format. In the past, Dr. Roberts has addressed the needs of emergency physicians by writing about topics such as Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, adverse drug reactions, cocaine washout syndrome, streptococcal pharyngitis, postherpetic neuralgia, and acute drug-induced dystonic reactions, among many, many others. Dr. Roberts’ focus — something for which he is well known throughout the specialty — is debunking myths and encouraging physicians to practice using evidence-based medicine rather than relying solely on intuition and habit.

The format and design of the CME-accredited activity within each issue of Emergency Medicine News will allow it to serve as a creditable and effective distance learning tool for emergency physicians, emergency medicine residents, medical students, nurses and nurse practitioners, physician assistants, paramedics, and allied health professionals with an interest in the specialized diagnostic techniques and treatment strategies leading to optimum care of emergency patients.

Learning objectives for each CME activity are procured and printed prior to each CME article in each issue.

Eight evaluation assessment questions will be included as part of the CME Quiz. These questions ensure that we determine that each activity's learning objectives have been met, that the activity was of educational value to the target audience and was unbiased, and offer participants a method of feedback.

Each individual CME activity will expire within one year of the activity’s release date.