{"id":8307,"date":"2018-05-10T07:00:55","date_gmt":"2018-05-10T12:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/feminem.org\/?p=8307"},"modified":"2018-05-09T20:12:57","modified_gmt":"2018-05-10T01:12:57","slug":"everything-in-its-season-letters-to-the-editor-printed-seasons-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/feminem.org\/2018\/05\/10\/everything-in-its-season-letters-to-the-editor-printed-seasons-later\/","title":{"rendered":"Everything in its Season? Letters to the Editor Printed Seasons Later"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In case you missed it:<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the June 2017 issue, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Emergency Medicine News<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> published \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/journals.lww.com\/em-news\/Fulltext\/2017\/06000\/ER_Goddess__Parenthood_or_Medicine__It_Shouldn_t.5.aspx\"><b>ER Goddess: Parenthood or Medicine? It Shouldn&#8217;t Be a Choice<\/b><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> by Dr. Sandy Simons advocating for a more humane sick call policy and speaking to the challenges of being both a parent and an emergency physician. The next month, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Emergency Medicine News<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> published a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/journals.lww.com\/em-news\/Fulltext\/2017\/08000\/Letter_to_the_Editor__Parenthood_and_Medicine,.26.aspx\"><b>Letter to the Editor: Parenthood and Medicine, Each in Its Season<\/b><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> by Dr. Geoffrey Martin in response, claiming it to be a \u201c<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">lie that women should be everything all the time to everyone.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Almost immediately after the letters publication, a firestorm erupted, primarily on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/search?l=&amp;q=to%3Aemnews%20since%3A2017-08-10%20until%3A2017-08-25&amp;src=typd\">Twitter<\/a>. Many tweeters questioned the editorial decision to publish such an inflammatory, divisive and arguably unhelpful response:<\/p>\n<div class=\"embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The First Amendment prevents government from suppressing speech. Private organizations do not need to promote it. This hurts the field.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Ryan Miglavs (@ryanmiglavs) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ryanmiglavs\/status\/899126510061101056?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 20, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In response, this was the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">EMN response:<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<div class=\"embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"und\" dir=\"ltr\"><a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/jzGOWYPpG4\">pic.twitter.com\/jzGOWYPpG4<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; EmergncyMedicineNews (@EMNews) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/EMNews\/status\/898267440697663488?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 17, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This policy was, to the best of our knowledge, previously not publicly available.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With that new knowledge, <strong>several of us<\/strong> in EM wrote <em>Letters to the Editor<\/em>, hoping to provide <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.spjnetwork.org\/ethicscode\/?p=10\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">context<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that EMN arguably should have sought out, to provide an alternative view to views about femininity and motherhood that have held <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.spjnetwork.org\/ethicscode\/?p=135\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">power<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> for far too long, to allow those <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.spjnetwork.org\/ethicscode\/?p=131\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">criticized<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to respond, and to correct <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.spjnetwork.org\/ethicscode\/?p=161\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">inaccuracies<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in the letter. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Initially we each were told that all letters would be published per stated policy, with a 250 word limit (Dr. Martin\u2019s Letter was 323 words, but there was such a word count listed in the print materials). We rewrote these letters, editing them down to fit the stated requirement.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><em>Months later<\/em>, we have now been told that, \u201c<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">we aren\u2019t running any letters about this issue because we do not want to activate any further discussion on that topic,\u201d and that the policy to run all letters has been changed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yet the letter by Dr. Martin remains largely unanswered.<\/span>\u00a0FemInEM has agreed to publish our responses, and we thank them for this platform.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sincerely,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dr. Kyle Fischer<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dr. Ari Friedman<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dr. Nikita Joshi<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dr. Megan Ranney<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Letter to the Editor, Kyle Fisher, MD<\/b><\/p>\n<p><b>August 25, 2017<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dear Editorial Board,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I am writing today to urge the Editorial Board to change EMNews\u2019 policy regarding publication\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">of opinion pieces. In recent months, several overtly sexist and racist pieces have appeared in\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the magazine\u2019s opinion section. Per representatives at EMNews, the underlying policy guiding\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">leading to the acceptance of these pieces is that all submissions are accepted, so long as they\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">are not libelous.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This policy is misguided at best and harmful at worst. Although deep respect for the First\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Amendment is a fundamental American value, it is not without limits. It in no way compels\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">independent publications to amplify the voices of individuals who propagate false stereotypes\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">or rehash settled debates.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The damage of these publications is not trivial. First, they serve as an embarrassment to the\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">field of emergency medicine. Although some may decry this as a misunderstanding from\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">readers as to who\u2019s view the comments represent, the real-world effect is the same. It gives a\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">platform and credibility to debunked theories while simultaneously bringing down the\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">respectability of our field.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Second, these articles distract from the important issues facing emergency care. With each\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">publication, there is a predictable human response to respond to opinions and beliefs that are\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">not in touch with our collective values. As a result, rather than additional content on the\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">important issues facing our specialty, we are drawn back into old fights that most have moved\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">on from long ago.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Finally, this policy diminishes the perceived respectability and impact of other accepted opinion\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">pieces. As someone who has previously published in the Letter to the Editor section, I was\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">under the impression that our ideas were printed for their value to the field of emergency\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">medicine. Now I question whether the quality mattered at all.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In residency, I was taught that if you identify a problem, you should be ready to follow-up with\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">a solution. Otherwise, you\u2019re just whining. Here\u2019s mine: In order to be accepted for publication\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">in EMNews, a piece must conform to the \u201cMission, Vision, and Values\u201d of the organization. It\u2019s\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">as simple as that. If EMNews hasn\u2019t articulated these principles yet, that would be a welcome\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">start.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Respectfully,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Kyle Fischer, MD, MPH<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Letter to the Editor by Ari Friedman, MD<\/b><\/p>\n<p><b>August 25, 2017<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To the Editor:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I read with dismay the recent letter which you chose to publish on \u201cParenthood and Medicine.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While the letter\u2019s title refers to parenthood, the letter-writer chooses to focus on motherhood\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">specifically, claiming it to be incompatible with \u201cexpert ability\u201d as a doctor. As justification, he\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">approvingly cites a book by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/How-Choose-Husband-Peace-Marriage\/dp\/1936488582\">Vender<\/a>, whose first two pages alone speciously build an argument that,\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cFeminists, in effect, are swindlers,\u201d and feminism is \u201ca radical movement and ideology.\u201d To cite but\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">two factual errors, <em>feminism did not begin in the 1960s<\/em>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bmj.com\/content\/353\/bmj.i2923\">lower wages for women are not simply\u00a0<\/a><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">attributable to fewer hours worked&#8211; including among physicians.\u00a0 This citation is\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">hardly a solid foundation on which to build Dr. Martin\u2019s sweeping claims.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Left unchallenged in Dr. Martin\u2019s missive is that there could be any other possible distraction from\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the work of doctoring. I once worked in a lab in which the least productive member was admonished\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">to stop spending so much time in the gym. Emergency medicine is a field whose practitioners have\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">notoriously variegated pursuits outside of the hospital. I suspect if he reflected objectively Dr. Martin\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">could recall plenty of examples of residents and physicians with non-parenting activities requiring\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">significant time commitments. I suspect reflection would also bring forth plenty of examples in which\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">an involved parent of either gender proved themselves to be a superb doctor, in spite of, or perhaps\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">because of, their parenting. I personally found having children to be enormously focusing, and I am\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">a far better student now for having had them, despite the thousands upon thousands of hours spent\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">caring for them.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Allow this member of the digital generation to offer some advice to EMN, which seems to devote so\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">much of its non-clinical discussion space to casually constructed arguments about the youth of\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">today\u2019s poor work habits and lack of devotion to their craft, especially if those \u2018youth\u2019 happen to be\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">mothers of any age. When you commit yourself to publishing any argument, no matter how poorly\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">considered, you will wind up giving far more space to those who lack the scholarly chops to publish\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">in other fora. The many brilliant clinician-parents, clinician-researchers, and clinician-researcher-\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">parents in emergency medicine are too busy with important pursuits to devote time to re-litigating\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">battles fought by their great-grandmothers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Consider as well applying a more erudite editorial hand to EMN articles other than letters.\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Comments such as the recent \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/journals.lww.com\/em-news\/Fulltext\/2017\/08000\/After_the_Match__How_to_Ace_the_In_Training_Exam.15.aspx\">too busy playing daddy<\/a>\u201d find their way into EMN\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">manuscripts on unrelated topics. This does not require censorship, rather positive editorial\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">involvement to tease out what the author really means. I suspect that a simple editorial query to Dr.\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Cook questioning why a gendered pronoun needed to be used at all, or whether he would have felt it\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">appropriate to say \u201cplaying mommy\u201d would have made it clear that his words were relegating\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">parenting to women\u2019s work, at which men can only play. If only women can truly parent, and true\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">parenting cannot be done contemporaneously with true doctoring, then our specialty is set to lose an\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">enormous portion of its most talented workforce.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sincerely,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ari Friedman, MD, PhD<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">PGY2 Emergency Medicine<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Harvard-Affiliate Emergency Medicine Residency<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Beth-Israel Deaconess Medical Center<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Boston, MA<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Letter to the Editor: Nikita Joshi, MD<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">August 22, 2017<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dear Editorial Board:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I am writing this letter in response to Dr. Martin\u2019s letter to the Editor which was recently\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">published. I came across the letter on one of the many Facebook forums that are dedicated to\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">women emergency medicine physician moms. My frustration and aghast at reading the letter\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">was nothing compared to other people\u2019s responses. I was even more surprised when I saw on\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">twitter the response from the board stating that this was related to the defense of the first\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">amendment, which turned out to be an erroneous interpretation of the first amendment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I will keep this letter short, particularly because I am 7 days post partum from my 2nd premie\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">baby who was born the day I read all of these comments. I believe that myself, and a significant\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">number of my fellow women physicians, women physician moms, women who aspire to be\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">physicians, and women physicians who will never desire to have children are certainly capable\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">of multitasking and living full personal and professional lives.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In my opinion, the biggest issue with this particular letter to the editor is about having a\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">stranger evaluate the choices that another individual would make towards their career and\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">personal lives. I am lucky to work in an institution that fully supports my choices to have a\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">balanced personal and professional life. I am lucky to work with men and women who do not\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">judge these choices that we all make, because they realize that men and women will have\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">instances in their lives that require balance.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I urge you to please stop the perpetuation of the myths that somehow women are incapable.\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That is a choice that everyone should have the ability to make themselves, without the\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">judgment or opinion of others, let alone a publication that seeks to be a voice of a specialty.\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Emergency Medicine is a great field, and one that I am proud to be a part of. Do not continue to s<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">hare outdated views which may turn away other highly qualified diverse men and women\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">interested in it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sincerely,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Nikita Joshi MD<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">@njoshi8<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">njoshi8@gmail.com<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pacifica, CA<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Letter to the Editor, Megan Ranney, MD<\/b><\/p>\n<p><b>August 25, 2017<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dear Editorial Board,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I am writing in response to Dr Martin\u2019s misguided letter to the editor. I take particular umbrage\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">with his statement that it\u2019s not \u201cin women\u2019s nature\u201d to be able to take on multiple roles at\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">once.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Anecdotally: I took my boards at 38 weeks pregnant with my 1 st child, was awarded my first\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">grant while on bedrest with my 2nd child, and ran the didactic curriculum for SAEM\u2019s Annual\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Meeting during maternity leave. One of my friends wrote her K-grant (career development\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">grant from NIH) while on maternity leave. Other friends write, train horses, serve as medical\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">directors, and more \u2013 while mothers and wives.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sure, balancing all these roles is sometimes painful, but no more so for me than for our\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">spouses.\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And there\u2019s no reason that women are the ones who should be told that it\u2019s painful to do all\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">these things simultaneously.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s this kind of antiquated message that dissuades young, motivated women from pursuing\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">greatness. It\u2019s due to this kind of societal bias that we have disproportionately fewer women in\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">positions of medical leadership.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We owe it to our specialty, and to our trainees, to remember that ALL physicians \u2013 whether\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">women or men \u2013 can be great physicians, researchers, administrators, and parents all at the\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">same time. It IS in all of our nature.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Best,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Megan L. Ranney MD MPH FACEP<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Email Communications and Author Instructions for reference:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>August 25, 2017<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dr. Fischer,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Thank you for your email. May I ask you to try to get the word count a little closer to our limit of 250 words? (This policy is printed in every issue; please see p. 5 of our August issue.) Please also send me your city and state of residence or practice to include after your name.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It should appear in the October issue (space permitting) because September is on press.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Thank you for reading EMN and taking the time to write to us.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Regards,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Lisa<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em><b>August 28, 2017<\/b><\/em><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Thank you for your email. Please send me your city and state of residence or practice to include after your name. Our policy is indeed to publish all letters in the order received as space permits. Yours should appear in the October or November issue.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Thank you for reading EMN and taking the time to write to us.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em><b>January 29, 2018<\/b><\/em><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Thank you for reaching out to <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Emergency Medicine News<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> with your comments on a letter to the editor published in August. We value input and feedback from readers like you.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dr. Martin\u2019s letter does not reflect <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">EMN<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2019s feelings about female emergency physicians or how they should manage their careers, and therefore we aren\u2019t running any letters about this issue because we do not want to activate any further discussion on that topic. I hope you can understand our position.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We have since updated our letters policy. This updated statement is now running in a box in the letters section of each issue. We encourage you to continue to submit comments and feedback as they relate to issues in emergency medicine and\/or <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">EMN<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> articles that appear in print or online. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>September LTE Author Instructions<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Letters to the Editor<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Have a comment about an EMN article? Like to share your views\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">about issues in emergency medicine? Send your letter to the editor\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">to emn@lww.com. Please limit your letter to 250 words and include\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">your full name, title, and city and state of residence or practice.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>January LTE Instructions<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Letters to the Editor<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Emergency Medicine News welcomes letters to the editor about any\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">subject related to emergency medicine. Please limit your letter to\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">250 words, and include your full name, credentials, and city and\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">state of residence or practice.\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Letters may be edited for content, length, and grammar. Submission\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">of a letter constitutes the author\u2019s permission to publish on all\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">media, including print, online, and social media, but does not guarantee\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">publication. Letters express the views of the authors and do\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">not necessarily reflect those of Emergency Medicine News and\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Wolters Kluwer.\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Letters to the editor may be sent to emn@lww.com.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In case you missed it: In the June 2017 issue, Emergency Medicine News published \u201cER Goddess: Parenthood or Medicine? It Shouldn&#8217;t Be a Choice by Dr. Sandy Simons advocating for a more humane sick call policy and speaking to the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":8319,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"Everything in its Season? 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