901 N. Washington Avenue Lansing, Michigan 48906-5137 Telephone: (517) 485-5484 FAX: (517) 485-0801 E-Mail: saem@saem.org

Society for Academic Emergency Medicine
Regional Meeting Guidelines and Application form

SAEM sponsors regional meetings in order to promote participation in academics by emergency medicine faculty, residents, and students. Regional meetings should provide opportunities for the presentation of original research, for enhancing research and teaching skills, and for discussion of new developments that affect clinical practice and education in emergency medicine. Regional meetings should provide content of similar quality to the SAEM Annual Meeting but with easier, less expensive access for attendees and shorter meeting duration. SAEM places considerable importance on the involvement of junior faculty, residents, and students in these meetings and believes that through the process of regionalization, new opportunities will be created for these members' academic growth and development.

Definition

There are currently six established SAEM Regional Meetings (New England, Midwest, Mid-Atlantic, New York state, Southeastern and Western). SAEM will consider applications for sponsorship of these established meetings, as well as for new regional meetings that involve a minimum of six EM training programs.

SAEM realizes the considerable effort to produce high-quality regional meetings and provides the following support to approved regional meetings in order to help ensure their success:

• Use of the SAEM name and logo in promotional materials. Artwork will be provided upon request to the SAEM office.

• Funding for up to two SAEM Board members to participate in and represent SAEM at the regional meeting. SAEM can provide a list of current Board members and their potential topic areas. Requests for financial support must be submitted to SAEM at least 90 days in advance of the regional meeting.

• Promotion of the "Call for Abstracts" and Regional Meeting advertisements in the SAEM Newsletter; the SAEM Journal, Academic Emergency Medicine; and the SAEM web site.

• Mailing labels of all or part of the SAEM membership list for use by the regional meeting to promote the conference. SAEM cannot provide financial support for postage to promote the regional meeting. Once obtained, these lists can be used for this purpose alone.

• Slide sets developed by the SAEM committees and task forces for potential didactic sessions. For example, the Undergraduate Committee has developed several slide shows for medical student programming. These slides sets are available at http://www.saem.org/services/educ.htm.

• Administrative assistance in development of advertisements, calls for abstracts, abstract submission brochures (including online submission through the SAEM Annual Meeting process), and advice on such issues as selection of regional meeting sites, meeting planning, and review of hotel contracts.

• Use of SAEM Annual Meeting policies, scoring systems, and processes.

• Meeting space at the SAEM Annual Meeting for regional meeting planning committee meetings.

• New regions may apply for funding from SAEM to help support their Regional Meeting for the first year only.

Every regional meeting must have a regional meeting planning committee (RMPC) that will be responsible for program planning and administration. Although the major planning for the meeting may be done by a small core of people from different programs within the region, every program in the region must be given the opportunity to be represented on the RMPC. Regional meetings can not be closed to additional requests from programs to join a region. All programs participating in regional meetings should have an equal opportunity to participate on the RMPC and in the meeting program. The mechanism for choosing leadership of the RMPC should be democratic and should ensure that there is stability and consistency in year-to-year planning and administration of the region's meetings. In this regard it is recommended that the immediate past, the current year, and the following year sites always have a representative on the RMPC. Members of the RMPC (including the chair) must be members of SAEM and should be appointed to multi-year terms, and the committee chair must have prior experience on the committee. Host instituttions must have an approved EM residency program.

Program Planning and Content

Each RMPC will be responsible for developing meeting objectives and for planning a program to achieve those objectives. Consistent with SAEM's academic focus, emphasis should be placed on presentation of original research, development of research and teaching skills, and application of science to the clinical practice of emergency medicine. Each regional meeting should provide programming specifically directed toward residents and medical students. The content of the regional meeting must meet SAEM's mission, values, and standards for quality. In keeping with SAEM's vision that the regional meetings should emphasize the presentation of original research and teaching skills, a minimum of two-thirds of the meeting should be devoted to the presentation of original peer reviewed research or to sessions aimed at enhancing teaching or research skills. SAEM will carefully review regional meeting applications and reserves the right to propose changes in program content or administration. Each year, the Board of Directors will make final decisions regarding regional meeting sponsorship.

Program Scheduling

SAEM encourages the scheduling of regional meetings throughout the academic year. Meetings may not be scheduled within 6 weeks of the SAEM Annual Meeting.

Regional meeting sites are selected by the RMPC and should be chosen with the intent of maximizing accessibility to emergency medicine residents, faculty, and medical students, and minimizing travel time and cost. The RMPC may decide to rotate the meeting to various sites within the region or to hold it at the same site each year.

The regional meeting application must be accompanied by a detailed budget. SAEM expects that meeting organizers will carefully consider all potential costs and ensure that they are balanced by sufficient income to off-set expenses. Each RMPC must have a plan for how to handle regional meeting profits or deficits and all participating programs must have agreed with that plan. SAEM will not assume responsibility for any deficits. Regional meetings must adhere to SAEM guidelines for commercial support. SAEM guidelines include that corporate exhibits and unrestricted educational grants are acceptable forms of sponsorship. Corporate co-sponsorship of the meeting or restricted educational grants used to fund a specific speaker or topic selected by the corporate sponsor are not acceptable.

SAEM encourages, but does not require, submission of original research presented at regional meetings to Academic Emergency Medicine (AEM). SAEM believes that authors are in the best position to decide where to publish their abstracts or resultant manuscripts. Therefore, regional meetings may not require a right of first refusal. AEM will consider publication of abstracts and other submissions from the RMPC on an individual basis, pending editorial review, consistent with space and budgetary limitations. Decision making authority regarding abstract publication in AEM rests with the editor of the journal. The RPMC should negotiate abstract publication arrangements directly with the editor of AEM.

SAEM will be the sole organizational sponsor of its regional meetings. CME accreditation may be sought through a host medical school, and SAEM understands that such CME accreditation may require that the CME provider is listed as a co-sponsor of the regional meeting.

SAEM strongly recommends strict adherence to a meeting plan. Applications must be well developed with well thought out goals and objectives that are consistent with those outlined above in this document. Planning should begin a minimum of one year in advance. A completed application must be submitted to the SAEM office no later than 8 months prior to the date of the meeting. The Board of Directors will review the application. Any questions or suggestions regarding the meeting plan will be provided directly to the RMPC chair. Whenever possible, the Board will make a final decision regarding SAEM sponsorship within 4 weeks of the date of receipt of the original application. Re-application for sponsorship is required on an annual basis. The application form is available on the SAEM Websitehomepage, and is appended to these guidelines. (Please see example timeline at the end of this document).

Regular communication between the RMPC and SAEM is essential in order to ensure the Regional Meeting is a success, that planning proceeds on schedule, and that SAEM provides appropriate support and resources. After the meeting is held, the RMPC chair must submit a written report detailing summary information, suggestions, success in achieving objectives, financial data, problems encountered, and a preliminary plan for the following year's meeting. An application for the following year will not be considered unless this report has been submitted.

The RMPC chair must submit a brief article for the SAEM newsletter within 60 days of the completion of the regional meeting. This article should describe the conference, recognize award winners, and acknowledge the hosting institutions and RMPC members. Photos may also be published on a space available basis. This article may help promote attendance at regional meetings for future years.

Example Time Line

1 year prior to meeting: RMPC selects and reserves meeting site and date

8 month prior to meeting: Completed application is submitted to SAEM Board of Directors (BOD)

7 months prior to meeting: BOD provides RMPC with decision on approval or disapproval

6 months prior to meeting: Information for publication and advertisements must be submitted to SAEM office (this includes deadline for abstract submission, contact person for the meeting and registration, registration fees, hotel cost and other information, and final program outline).

3 months prior to meeting: Detailed finalized program/brochure with description of sessions and speakers should be submitted to SAEM.

60 days following the meeting: RPMC must submit report to BOD and article for SAEM Newsletter

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