Medical students present at regional emergency medicine conference

Third-year medical students presented at the conference in Destin, Florida.

Matthew Westerfield and Juliette Lewis

Eight third-year medical students represented the Whiddon College of Medicine in the poster competition at the American College of Emergency Physicians' EMerald Coast Conference. This annual multi-state emergency medicine conference, held in Destin, Florida on June 4, pits residents and medical students from across nine states against one another. 

This year, Matthew Westerfield, Juliette Lewis, Kelly Blacksher and Hannah Hill collaborated to win two of the three awards presented in the case studies category for their presentations. Westerfield and Lewis presented a case on a patient with a pheochromocytoma, a rare tumor that develops in the adrenal glands. Blacksher and Hill presented a poster detailing a case of gross cervical lymphadenopathy, an enlargement of the lymph nodes in the neck. 

Kelly Blacksher and Hannah Hill

Richard Preus, Noah Que, Jonathan Hubbert and Charlie Crider rounded out the group of M3s who presented at the conference. 

Michael Sternberg, M.D., professor of emergency medicine, and Christopher Musselwhite, M.D., assistant professor of emergency medicine, served as the students' mentors. 

“The Whiddon College of Medicine has a strong history of winning at this conference, and the Class of 2026 is no exception,” Sternberg said. “The Department of Emergency Medicine is very proud of them and looking forward to continued scholarly and clinical activities in the upcoming year.”

The EMerald Coast Conference brought together emergency medicine providers from participating ACEP chapters in Alabama, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Oklahoma and Tennessee.