It goes without saying that 2020 presented many challenges for the worldwide EM community.

We all know what those challenges were, so I'm not going to list them here.

As we enter 2021, I thought it important to reflect on what we did well in 2020,

what made us proud to be EM docs so that we keep this perspective and keep on

growing as a community going forward. So I asked a few colleagues, educators, and leaders in EM,

a specific question, and that is, what made you glad to be an EM doc in 2020? This is what they said.

Why am I proud to be an emergency physician in 2020?

This year we had a call to arms in a global crisis like nothing we've experienced in recent human history.

With so much unknown, with risk to ourselves and to our families, with insufficient

resources, and without hesitation, we accepted the challenge. Unlike any other specialty,

emergency medicine truly demands courage and adaptability, and I admired this in my colleagues

every day. I admired how in my colleagues every day.

I admired how they quickly trained and adapted to protected Code Blues,

how they took care of their team safety,

how they insisted on seeing COVID cases for their older colleagues,

how they rapidly integrated guidelines that changed by the hour,

how they demonstrated sincere compassion

over the phone as they spoke to heartbroken families that couldn't be with their loved ones.

It hasn't been an easy year, but I believe it has been a defining year for our specialty, and I'm so

proud to have been on the medical front line of 2020 with my emergency medicine colleagues.

2020 tested many of the things I've always loved about emergency medicine.

Teamwork, nurses, allied health, our trainees, our consultants, and yes, our administrators,

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