No one lives more dangerously in modern society than he who dares to be an originator instead of an imitator.
~Anonymous

Making the Idea a Reality
In spring 1974 a small group of residents went to Dallas for the Fourth Annual Meeting of the University Association for Emergency Medical (UA/EM), later to become the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine, (SAEM). Among them was Joseph F. Waeckerle, MD, from the Kansas City General program. Dr. Waeckerle's residency director, Kendall McNabney, MD, had encouraged him to attend the meeting and get involved in the decisions that would structure the developing specialty of emergency medicine.

Dr. Waeckerle did get involved. During his time in Dallas, he shared an idea with a few other residents. "So there we were," Waeckerle recalls, "in a hotel bar in Dallas in the spring of 1974, just sitting around and talking. There was a guy named Bill Walker from Cincinnati, a guy named Jeff Sullivan from the Medical College of Pennsylvania, and a couple of others. I told them about my idea to form an organization for residents. They all liked the idea, and that afternoon EMRA was born."  Read More »