Howie Mell is a board-certified emergency medicine and emergency medical services (EMS) physician licensed in six states. Before he ever put on a white coat, he ran calls as a firefighter/paramedic in the Chicago suburbs, where he learned that medicine happens at the worst moment of someone's life, and that showing up matters. He earned his MPH at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) School of Public Health and his MD at UIC Rockford, and completed his emergency medicine residency at Mayo Clinic.
He has served the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) as a national spokesperson and as past president of its Illinois chapter. He is a frequent guest on emergency medicine podcasts and lectures on the specialty throughout the U.S. He practices in the Midwest, but home base is North Carolina.
A husband and dad of four, he writes about the front line: the patients, the systems, and the moments that never make the chart. Some of his patients never went home; he tries to tell their stories the way they deserve. His research publications are collected on Google Scholar, and he shares updates on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook.
The author and his wife, at a time when getting off the floor required considerably less planning.
People ask what being an emergency physician is like, and they expect the blood, the saves, the codes, the worst nights. Those happen, and they matter, but I try not to carry those home. What I try to keep is the people. You meet everyone in …
Why I stay in emergency medicine: a dancer at nearly 100
I’m the guy who doesn’t need help at the Apple Store. Thirty years as the family IT department, the one who sets up everybody’s phone at Thanksgiving. So I can’t tell you why, when I bought a new iPad Pro in June 2022, I walked into the store to have them move everything over for me. Habit, maybe. A slow afternoon. I figured I’d be out in ten minutes.
I always …
COVID trauma in emergency physicians can surface suddenly
A great deal has been written about physician burnout, especially in emergency medicine.
Inefficient electronic medical records, rapidly decreasing resources, increasing job demands, litigation risks, huge debt burdens from training, and on and on.
But in my opinion, much of this is common to any career. Show me a person that doesn’t ask themselves at least once, no matter what their occupation, “Why am I still here?” and I’ll show you someone …
Being an emergency physician is magical
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