Taylor Diederich, MD

I am a current PGY-2 at the University of Kansas in Kansas City after calling Philadelphia my home for medical school at the University of Pennsylvania. I have the utmost passion for clinical emergency medicine, bedside teaching, and prehospital medicine, and hope to pursue EMS fellowship following residency. It has been my pleasure and privilege to spend two years working on the RAMS Board. Immediately after I first joined, I found myself surrounded by passionate, highly motivated, and teamwork-minded peers. As a board member and Education Committee liaison, I pioneered webinars, articles, and a scholarship aimed at breaking down barriers for medical students to participate in the annual conference. As we emerge from a residency match cycle challenged by decreased applicant numbers, I believe now more than ever that RAMS must prioritize engaging medical students. As president of RAMS, I would aim to take action towards growing and nurturing our early trainee base. With growth in both student and resident participation, I believe this critical interaction between near peers will both give opportunity for residents to grow as leaders and meaningfully welcome students into our specialty. However, awareness of our organization and its opportunities is only half the battle; early trainees fall prey to imposter syndrome, as do we all. In addition to personal interaction, frequent small-scale opportunities for involvement could collectively serve as a powerful door into long-term commitment. To improve personalized interaction, I hope to create a resident to medical student near peer mentorship system. I also feel that by creating a regularly scheduled forum specifically for trainees to gather amongst themselves and discuss the current issues that inspire and concern them about pursuing emergency medicine, we may engage our student and resident base to use their unique voices to help the greater community in a safe environment. In SAEM Pulse as well, for example, we might recruit potential leaders by offering a dedicated space for trainee authorship. By investing in our medical students and residents, we can ensure a strong pipeline into the field of academic emergency medicine as well as its continued growth as a rich community well into the future.