This academic year started off with a bang as Florida saw the worst COVID-19 surge in our state since the pandemic began. This, in turn, prompted our new interns to start the year off running. We are very happy to welcome Drs. Abigail Alorda, Taylor Cesarz, Natalie Diers, Robert Pell, Mitchell Voter, Alexa Ragusa and Bridget Schevek to our program. In July, they completed their intern bootcamp and attended the MSMU Ultrasound Conference in Miami. Now they are already aiding in resuscitations, performing procedures, and taking on a heavy patient workload, rising to the occasion to care for our very sick patient population.

We also welcomed our newest class of fellows. Dr. Michelle Hernandez, former chief resident, will be one of two ultrasound fellows at our program, and she will be joined by Dr. Thomas Lawyer who is coming from AdventHealth East Orlando’s EM Residency. Drs. Maria Chamorro and Amber Mirajkar have stayed on as the academic and research fellows, respectively. Dr. Chamorro attended the ACEP/CORD Teaching Conference in August in Fort Worth, TX, returning with a plethora of ideas on how to further enhance our didactics. She looks forward to attending the second part of the conference in Spring 2022.

At the ACEP 2021 Research Forum Special Edition: COVID on August 4, several members of our residency presented original research. Drs. Amber Mirajkar and Mark Rivera, PGY-3, presented “Racial Disparities in Patients Hospitalized for COVID-19,” and EMS Director, Dr. Ayanna Walker, presented “Impact of virtual simulation to teach paramedics respiratory failure management during the COVID-19 Pandemic.” To continue the tradition of research, Dr. Parth Patel, PGY-3, is presenting “The A to E (ABCDE) Pit Crew Model: A Novel Approach to Team Based Cared of Critical Patients in the Prehospital Setting” at the ACEP21 Research Forum in October. We look forward to seeing everything there and comparing ideas and findings.

While we love presenting research at conferences, virtual or in-person, we have been publishing research, too. Drs. Mark Rivera, PGY-3, Jesse Wu, PGY-3, and Larissa Dub, Associate Medical Director of the Emergency Department, published “Rare Presentation of Deep Vein Thrombosis and Submassive Pulmonary Emboli due to Hypercoagulable State with Supratherapeutic Anticoagulation.” Additionally, Drs. Fernando Rivera-Alvarez, PGY-3, Marvi Gul, PGY-2, Ayanna Walker and Anines Quinones, EM Faculty, published “Aortic Dissection as a Seizure.” We have many more publications in the works and cannot wait to submit them!

Despite the new wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and returning to virtual didactics, our commitment to education and training has never waned; we have just become more creative. ■