A provider who specializes in emergency medicine focuses on the recognition, evaluation, diagnosis, decision-making, stabilization, management, treatment, and disposition of patients with acute illnesses and/or injuries.
Where Do Emergency Medicine Providers Practice? Emergency medicine providers may practice in a variety of settings including (but not limited to) hospital-based emergency rooms, urgent cares, freestanding emergency departments, observation units, emergency response vehicles, telemedicine locations, and disaster sites.
What Type of Care Does Emergency Medicine Involve?
Pre-Hospital Care Providers who specialize in emergency medicine are commonly involved in pre-hospital care through the following:
Directly work with emergency medical services in the field (pre-hospital scenes) to assist with care.
Remotely communicate with emergency medical services to assist with pre-hospital management and decision-making.
Take over management as patients are transitioned from pre-hospital care to a hospital/clinic setting.
Hospital/Clinic Care
Once a patient presents to an acute care facility, the emergency medicine provider works to diagnose and manage the individual's urgent condition or injury.
The emergency medicine provider evaluates the patient, orders diagnostic testing, initiates treatment, and performs procedures if necessary.
The provider then decides a disposition for the patient. Some patients are discharged from the emergency department while others are admitted to the observation unit, inpatient floor, or intensive care unit.
Emergency medicine is fast-paced, and it often involves management of multiple patients with different illnesses simultaneously.
The specialty is also team-oriented with many different individuals working in the emergency department including (but not limited to) physicians, nurses, advanced providers, pharmacists, respiratory therapists, medical assistants, psychiatry professionals, emergency medical services, lab technicians, imaging technicians, social workers, case managers, triage teams, registration, and more.
Who Do Emergency Medicine Providers Treat?
Emergency providers have a broad medical knowledge of all specialties as they must be prepared to treat any individual and condition who presents to them.
Some of the medical specialties emergency providers must understand include (but are not limited to) cardiology, pulmonology, neurology, surgery, ophthalmology, orthopedics, dermatology, urology, nephrology, gastroenterology, ENT, trauma, psychiatry, and more.
Emergency medicine is diverse in that providers are trained to care for patients of all ages, illnesses involving any organ system, and conditions involving a range of severity.
Example presentations a provider may encounter include (but are not limited to) strokes, heart attacks, traumas, burns, fractures, dislocations, lacerations, infectious diseases, abdominal emergencies, thoracic emergencies, intracranial emergencies, surgical emergencies, and much more.
What Procedures Do Emergency Medicine Providers Perform?
Providers who specialize in emergency medicine are trained to perform various procedures including (but not limited to) intubations, lumbar punctures, central line insertions, suturing, procedural sedations, fracture/dislocation reductions, arterial line insertions, chest tube placements, and much more.
What is a Typical Schedule for an Emergency Medicine Provider?
The schedule varies for each emergency medicine provider.
Full-time providers work 10-17 shifts per month on average (this is highly variable from facility to facility, and there are many factors that contribute including length of each shift).
Each shift is typically 8-12 hours long (again, varies from facility to facility). Rural settings and/or lower volume facilities may offer 24 hour shifts.
Emergency medicine providers may work morning, afternoon, and/or night shifts spread out over weekdays and weekends. There is usually a holiday rotation as well in which providers take turns working major holidays.
Typically there is no "on-call" for emergency medicine providers. They work their shift, and once the shift is over they are not due to report until their next scheduled shift.
How to Become an Emergency Medicine Provider?
In order to become an emergency medicine physician, one must complete an emergency medicine residency training program. The requirements can be viewed below.
Are There Subspecialties Within Emergency Medicine?
There are fellowship opportunities available after completing residency. Fellowships further enhance knowledge and training within a particular subspecialty of emergency medicine.