Dr. Greg Henry
|
One commentator calls long-time EMF contributor Greg Henry a “modern-day Socrates, Plato, and Ben Franklin all rolled into one.” Another notes that he is one of emergency medicine’s “preeminent philosophers and educators” and describes his style as “in-your-face eloquence.” Few who know Greg Henry would disagree.
If you have heard Greg Henry teach a class, address a group, or, for that matter, chat over a cup of coffee, you know about that “Greg Henry eloquence.” In fact, “chat” is not a verb that should be used in the same sentence with “Greg Henry.” He mesmerizes. He entertains. He provokes. Although he’s definitely a “big picture” guy, he also supplies the specifics that explain and clarify, and his delivery always connects. Quoting Shakespeare, Elmer Fudd, Abraham Lincoln, and his wife with equal aplomb, he effortlessly lets their words embellish his own message, be it a sharp jab, a poignant tale, a call to action, or a witty send-up. And the Emergency Medicine Foundation is one of his passions.
Henry is in high demand nationally and internationally as a teacher on several areas of expertise, from neurologic emergencies and medical liability to ED management and life planning. A peek at his CV shows dozens of teaching engagements every year. One summer he began with a lecture in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and six weeks later was the keynote speaker in Brisbane, Australia. In between he had taught in Wichita, Kansas, and Edinburgh, Scotland, and had spent 10 days consulting and lecturing at seven hospitals in Singapore.
EM has special niche in research needed today
Henry is a clinical professor of emergency medicine at the University of Michigan Medical Center and practices in the St. Joseph Mercy Hospital System in Ann Arbor. He has been an examiner for the American Board of Emergency Medicine since 1982.
He served on the EMF Board of Trustees from 1991 to 1998 and was EMF chair in 1998-99, following his term as ACEP president.
Not surprisingly, when asked about the importance of EMF Henry frames his answer in the big picture of the implications for American health care: “There are emergency medicine questions that are quite different than those raised by the other specialties. We ask a lot of questions that have to do with distribution of health care and the obtaining of health care, questions which are not in the provenance of specialties like ophthalmology or dermatology. Emergency medicine needs, as a specialty, to have the information, the data, the research that allow us to deal with the health care planners of the United States.”
He stresses that we need accurate research to help determine how health care will be delivered. “How do we convince the public that what they need from health care and what they want are two different things? Right now they don’t believe that. They think more is better.”
As examples of the kind of research needed, he says, “What’s the number of residencies we need? Why use nurses and not techs? Why physicians and not physician assistants?”
Henry acknowledges that political leaders making decisions about health care delivery may ignore or deny research. But, he counters, “Research is only ignored for a certain amount of time. Remember Galileo? Yes, at first people did ignore the fact that the earth moved around the sun, but eventually they accepted the science. You can’t do research and expect it to effect change in a week or month or a year. You put another brick in the wall. Put enough bricks together, and you’ve got a mountain.”
Henry thinks EMF makes a valuable contribution to the research needed and he is a major donor to the foundation.
“EMF cannot answer all of medicine’s questions, so it ought to answer those specifically related to emergency medicine—not only what we as emergency physicians do for a living, but what could really affect the populace of the United States,” he says. “What EMF does have is the money to encourage young researchers to learn how to do research, so they then have the capability of obtaining serious funding. In the final analysis, emergency medicine has a unique character and unique questions that need to be answered to carry on the larger discussions about health care in this country.”
