Arlene Chung, MD

INCUMBENT CANDIDATE

Institution: University of Vermont

Current Title: Vice Chair of Academic Affairs 

Reasons for wanting to join the CORD Board of Directors & Opinions and Priorities for the Board: Now more than ever, I believe that we need to strive for physically and psychologically safe learning environments and to foster compassion, resilience, and equity for all. As a member of the CORD Board of Directors, I hope to provide leadership and service to the emergency medicine education community that will leverage available resources and technology to allow for advances in the way we approach learning and assessment; the well-being of our students, residents and faculty; and the development of leaders in our specialty who are inspired to address issues such as advocacy, diversity and inclusion, and social determinants of health. Complex issues such as protected time for faculty members, residency recruitment, and the future of the emergency medicine physician workforce have been at the top of our minds for many of us. I hear you. I have faced the same daily struggles at my own institution. I believe that I will bring the same guiding principles of innovation, transparency, and shared vulnerability that I used to lead in my current roles to the leadership of CORD. Unprecedented times call for unique and creative solutions and I believe that as a member of the Board, I will be able to foster the collaboration, transparency, and innovation that will be key to developing guidance and support to help us all get through this together. Thank you for your consideration and it would be an honor to serve again.

Special Skills, talents, perspectives that you would like to share: Although I bring the knowledge and skills of a formally trained and tested medical educator to the Board, I believe that perhaps my most valuable contribution is the perspective through which I view education, training, and leadership in emergency medicine. I have served in an academic leadership role at three- and four-year programs, community and university-based programs, and in urban and rural settings. I also identify as female, a visible racial minority, mother of a young child, and as an emergency physician, which all in their turn contribute to the lens through which I make decisions that influence the training and opportunities of other people. I understand what it means to be perceived as young and stereotyped and also as a leader during times of crisis. I know what it means to struggle with the unrelenting demands of a pandemic toddler and a rigorous academic career. It is my hope that I can bring this special balance of perspective to my decisions as a Board member for CORD and be of service to current needs of the emergency medicine education community during these challenging times.

Previous CORD Experience: I have had the honor of serving as a member of the CORD Board of Directors for the past two years, from 2022-2024. During this time, emergency medicine has seen several challenges related to both residency training and the specialty as a whole. These include navigating recruitment in a post-pandemic world of virtual, in-person, and hybrid formats; an unprecedented number of unfilled residency slots in the 2023 Match; and concerns about the projected workforce in emergency medicine. I am proud to have been able to represent your voices and advocate on your behalf to ensure that your specific needs are understood throughout the broader emergency medicine and graduate medical education communities.

In addition, I previously served as a founder and the inaugural Chair of the CORD Resilience Committee, a role which I held for two consecutive cycles from 2016-2018. The committee was created to address the growing need for dedicated resources, guidance, and support for resident and faculty well-being in Emergency Medicine. During this time, the Resilience Committee engaged in broad collaboration with other stakeholder groups including EMRA, ACEP, the ACGME, ABEM, and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. We were the first organization to create the campaign for National Physician Suicide Prevention Day, which has now gained widespread recognition. In these early years, we also successfully published a two-part peer-reviewed summary of over 50 wellness survey instruments; created the Wellness Champion Directory; disseminated wellness videos, modules, and resources to residency programs; and spearheaded collaborative projects between committee members. I am proud of my leadership as Chair during this time and have been excited to watch the Resilience Committee grow over the years since stepping down.

One of the greatest personal contributions I have made to CORD has been the development of the Mini-Fellowship in Wellness Leadership. We developed this year-long program to better support resident engagement in the organization and serve as a pipeline for future CORD leaders. As well as providing education and mentorship to senior EM residents, it has served as a model for other similar successful programs such as the Residency Administration Fellowship. It has also expanded the opportunity for faculty to take on leadership roles within CORD as Mini-Fellowship directors, speakers, and mentors. The Mini-Fellowship is now in its seventh consecutive cycle.

In addition to holding formal leadership roles within CORD, over the years I have supported the organization through service as an abstract reviewer, poster session moderator, didactic speaker, committee member, and helped contribute to the success of affiliated programs such as MERC at CORD.

History of Program Leadership Experience: My current role as the Vice Chair of Academic Affairs at the University of Vermont has been heavily informed by my experience in residency program leadership. I previously served for nearly six years as the Program Director at Maimonides Medical Center, a three-year community-based program in the heart of Brooklyn, New York. My daily responsibilities included the oversight and training of 54 EM residents and the provision of additional guidance and mentorship for three Medical Education fellows. In addition to my role as the Program Director, I also served as the Medical Education Division Director for the Department of EM and oversaw the roles of our Clerkship Directors and Medical Education Fellowship Director. Each year we had roughly 100 senior medical students who rotated through our traditional sub-internship and electives.

Previously, I was the Assistant and then Associate Program Director for the Mount Sinai EM Residency at the Icahn School of Medicine in New York City, a four-year university-based program of 60 EM residents at the time. I also held the role of Site Director for the New York Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst Hospital clinical training site.

My formal medical education training includes a two-year Medical Education Fellowship at Maimonides Medical Center, during which time I obtained a master’s degree in Academic Medicine from the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine.

Leadership Experience:I have held several leadership roles with different organizations at different levels of responsibility. While many of these roles have fallen under the umbrella of my professional focus in physician well-being, the knowledge and skills required to succeed in these roles spans all disciplines. My formal national leadership titles outside of departmental and residency program leadership include inaugural Chair of the CORD Resilience Committee; Chair of the ACEP Well-Being Committee; Chair-Elect of the ACEP Wellness Section; and Chief Strategy Officer of the Academic Life in Emergency Medicine Wellness Think Tank. I have created and served as the director for longitudinal programs such as the CORD Mini-Fellowship in Wellness Leadership and the New York ACEP Opportunities for Women in Leadership Program. I currently lead the Medical Education Research Certificate Program at CORD. I am also in my second consecutive elected term as a Board member for New York ACEP, a role in which am responsible for directing policy and guidance for emergency medicine education, operations, and patient advocacy in New York state.

Knowledge or experience with large/complex organizations or other non-profits beyond CORD:As specified earlier, I have held several national leadership roles with other large and complex organizations such as ACEP, New York ACEP, and Academic Life in Emergency Medicine. In addition, I am one of the co-founders and President of the organization Airway: True Stories of the Emergency Room, an experiential storytelling forum for emergency medicine physicians to foster emotional resilience and community. We have collaborated with ACEP, EMRA, CORD, AAEM, FemInEM, and AFFIRM as well as individual residency program and state organizations to bring storytelling events to emergency physicians across the country. The knowledge and experience required to manage operations, finances, and legal requirements for successful execution of these events, in addition to the skills gained through other leadership positions in other organizations, I hope will continue to serve me well as a member of the Board of Directors of CORD.