Current Issue: Volume 22 Issue 4

Comment on “Misunderstanding the Match: Do Students Create Rank Lists Based on True Preferences?”

Connors, NJ.

We would like to thank the authors for exploring students’ understanding of the National Residency Match Program (NRMP) algorithm,1 as it is both complex and potentially confusing. In their paper, the authors make significant value judgments about what should and should not affect an applicant’s rank list. They make assumptions about what an optimal match would be for applicants and assert that a program’s opinion of an applicant is not a reason to change a preference for one residency over another. An applicant’s perceived competitiveness based on program reputation alone should not dissuade them from ranking highly a very competitive program, as the NRMP algorithm prioritizes applicants’ preferences over those of programs. However, if an applicant has some evidence that a certain program thinks especially highly of them, we believe that bit of data may suggest how a program views their fit with the residency. Programs should be cautious when alerting applicants about their relative rank list positions as applicants may interpret that as a guarantee. Ranking an applicant highly may not necessarily mean they are guaranteed to match, but rather in a position to match based on data from previous match years.

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An Automated Tobacco Cessation Intervention for Emergency Department Discharged Patients

Chiu, DT.

Nearly 14% of US adults currently smoke cigarettes. Cigarette smoking causes more than 480,000 deaths each year in the United States. Emergency department (ED) patients are frequently asked for their use of tobacco. Manual selection of pre-formed discharge instructions is the norm for most ED. Providing tobacco cessation discharge instructions to ED patients presents another avenue to combat the tobacco use epidemic we face. The objective of the study is to evaluate the effectiveness of an automated discharge instruction system in increasing the frequency of discharging current tobacco users with instructions for tobacco cessation.

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Emergency Absentee Voting for Hospitalized Patients and Voting During COVID-19: A 50-State Study

Tang, OY.

Voters facing illness or disability are disproportionately under-represented in terms of voter turnout. Earlier research has indicated that enfranchisement of these populations may reinforce the implementation of policies improving health outcomes and equity. Due to the confluence of the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and the 2020 election, we aimed to assess emergency absentee voting processes, which allow voters hospitalized after regular absentee deadlines to still obtain an absentee ballot, and election changes due to COVID-19 in all 50 states.

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Email: editor@westjem.org

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WestJEM
ISSN: 1936-900X
e-ISSN: 1936-9018

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ISSN: 2474-252X

Our Philosophy

Emergency Medicine is a specialty which closely reflects societal challenges and consequences of public policy decisions. The emergency department specifically deals with social injustice, health and economic disparities, violence, substance abuse, and disaster preparedness and response. This journal focuses on how emergency care affects the health of the community and population, and conversely, how these societal challenges affect the composition of the patient population who seek care in the emergency department. The development of better systems to provide emergency care, including technology solutions, is critical to enhancing population health.