Why choose emergency medicine?
Emergency Medicine has developed into an exciting and rewarding career, which attracts individuals who thrive on challenge, uncertainty and variety. A career in Emergency Medicine will never be dull and offers chances to develop your own interests and areas of expertise within a broad range of patient presentations.
Since the pilot run-through emergency medicine programme began in 2014, admission to the ACCS -Emergency medicine themed programme means that you can choose to follow a run-through training programme for 6 years.
As a trainee what can I expect from my training programme?
Emergency Medicine (EM) training takes 6 years. The first 3 years is spent in Acute Care Common Stem. During this first 3 years an EM trainee spends Year 1 in EM and Acute Medicine, Year 2 in Anaesthetics and Intensive Care and then returns in Year 3 to EM to develop paediatric skills, trauma skills and ‘shop floor’ leadership skills. After this Core Training most trainees ‘run through’ to higher training, although currently trainees can enter training at Year 4 if they have gained the relevant competencies elsewhere. ‘Higher training’ takes a further 3 years and is spent entirely within Emergency Medicine. Typically trainees spend a year in one of nine regional hospitals from Carlisle to Middlesbrough. All trainees will spend at least a year in one of the two regional Major Trauma Centres – the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle or the James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough.
We deliver training in a really diverse group of hospitals from small rural district hospitals to large urban trauma centres – trainees can tailor their training to the sort of EM consultant they want to be. The vast majority of trainees obtain consultant posts in our region.
Training is delivered by enthusiastic, committed trainers who care about their trainees and can deliver all aspects of EM training such as Paediatic and Pre-Hospital sub-specialty training, and cutting edge developments in Trauma, Ultrasound and Simulation. We have an excellent success rate in the MCEM and FCEM examinations.
What our trainees say:
I am an Emergency Medicine trainee, therefore when timetabled on the shop floor I am committed here and spend the whole day or night working on the shop floor. CPD time is very different: it is self-directed, attending courses/meeting, presenting locally/regionally, teaching and carrying out audit. All aspects are varied, interesting and well supported by both my educational and clinical supervisors.
There is no real typical day in the life of an EM trainee. What I enjoy most about the job is the variety: shop floor work is always different. Mix that with the clinics, ward round, teaching etc. and I never got bored. The rewards are high in Emergency Medicine when you make people better and there is a high level of professional satisfaction in that.
Overall the rewards are huge! The work-life balance as a trainee improves hugely as you become more senior. When you become a Consultant all the hard work and commitment is worth it.
If you are considering this specialty you need absolute dedication from day one and need to be able to make independent expedient decisions.