Dr. Charles Pollack
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Ask virtually any emergency physician how he or she got into emergency medicine and you’ll hear a story about falling in love with the specialty—the pace of the ED, the teamwork, the challenge of handling whatever comes in the door. Charles V. Pollack, Jr., MA, MD, is no different.
“I had limited exposure to emergency medicine during medical school, and I left there actually intending to be a general surgeon,” Pollack explains. But after his surgical internship at San Diego’s Naval Hospital he was shipped to Okinawa, where he worked in an emergency department. “I really fell in love with it, and while I was in Japan I withdrew from my upcoming surgery residency and decided to train in emergency medicine.”
Thus it began. More than 20 years later, Pollack is now chair of the ED at Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia, with more than 200 articles, chapters, and abstracts to his credit, along with a long list of teaching and research awards, including ACEP’s top research award.
Pollack notes EMF is “the only source of research funding that is immediately pertinent to emergency physicians and the work that we do.” He considers EMF’s understanding of the challenging environment of the ED a tremendous resource to grant applicants: “EMF’s panel of reviewers understand how unique emergency medicine practice is.”
He ought to know. Pollack has served on EMF’s Scientific Review Committee—the group that reviews grant applications—for 15 years, including 5 years as its chair.
“I think the legacy of EMF is both specific and general,” he comments. On the specific side, “a number of emergency physicians who are recognized across multiple disciplines as doing significant work that is unique and driving science had their careers jumpstarted by EMF funding, sometimes as far back as a resident research grant.”
EMF’s general impact, Pollack notes, “goes well beyond the work done by any individual, by providing an ongoing awareness of funding opportunities and encouraging investigators who may have been spurned by more traditional sources of funding. Even if they don’t get funded, they receive expert and detailed review of their work, and they are supported by their peers. Just having EMF there lets EM researchers know they’re not alone."
