The American College of Emergency Physicians Thursday recognized Francis Miller Fesmire, MD, FACEP, medical director of the Chest Pain Center at Erlanger Medical Center, as a "Hero of Emergency Medicine." The campaign, which is part of ACEP's 40th anniversary, recognizes emergency physicians who have made significant contributions to emergency medicine, their communities and their patients.
"Emergency physicians are on the front lines of America's health care system, providing the essential community service of emergency care," says ACEP President Linda L. Lawrence, MD. "The dedication, passion and commitment Dr. Fesmire has shown embodies the vision of ACEP's founders and the ideals of our specialty.
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Dr. Fesmire is also a professor of medicine and director of research at UT College of Medicine, Chattanooga. He is a national expert in myocardial infarction and has assisted in the development of clinical policies on the standard of care in treating patients with suspected myocardial infarction by the American College of Emergency Physicians, the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology. He has performed numerous investigations in chest pain patients, reporting the usefulness of continuous 12-lead ECG monitoring, two-hour cardiac delta marker testing and nuclear stress testing in the emergency department. The culmination of his studies was "The Erlanger Protocol," published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine in 2002.
He was honored with the Emergency Medicine Foundation's "Young Investigator Award" in 1996 and gained international notoriety when he won the 2006 "Ig Nobel Prize in Medicine" for a 1988 case report detailing a unique cure for hiccups. His current interest is the development of artificial intelligence networks to assist physicians in clinical decision making.
"The American College of Emergency Physicians is celebrating 40 years of advancing emergency care, and the nation's emergency physicians are dedicated to saving even more lives and to improving emergency care for the next 40 years," said Dr. Lawrence. "Tens of thousands of lives are saved each year by emergency physicians and 115 million patients are treated in the nation's emergency departments. Emergency physicians are medical specialists who are experts in their field."
ACEP is a national medical specialty society representing emergency medicine with more than 25,000 members. ACEP is committed to advancing emergency care through continuing education, research and public education. Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, ACEP has 53 chapters representing each state, as well as Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia. A Government Services Chapter represents emergency physicians employed by military branches and other government agencies. ACEP's 40th Anniversary is sponsored by Ultrasonix Medical Corporation, a manufacturer of high quality diagnostic ultrasound imaging systems.