A national Emergency Medicine (EM) specialty organization is as vital for a country first developing the specialty of EM as it is in a country where the specialty is well established.1 This manuscript presents some of the considerations that founders of a new organization of EM
practitioners must address as they develop their own organization and then continue to operate it. The impetus for this manuscript was to provide a reference document as a service of the International Federation for Emergency Medicine (IFEM). It addresses many requests directed to IFEM for advice on starting the specialty of EM (see IFEM’s website www.ifem.cc )2. This manuscript reviews the general importance of the specialty of EM, structural and procedural considerations for EM specialty organization development, and some of the political
considerations related to EM specialty organizations.

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