Emergency Physicians International was founded in 2010 as a way to tell the stories of the heroic men and women developing emergency medicine around the globe. This magazine is dedicated to their tireless efforts saving lives in the harshest conditions, 24/7/365.
Dr. Juan Manuel Gutierrez Cruz discusses the Colombian COVID-19 experience.
Dr. Kenneth Lindsey offers a first-hand look at rural emergency medicine in the United States, where the pandemic and annual natural disasters create parallel challenges that merit very different responses.
We invite you to take a moment to explore some featured articles around the greater Emergency Medicine community.
An EMT's reflections on different roles in Emergency Medicine
The pandemic has revealed how our healthcare systems lead to mismanaged emergency rooms, and exploited emergency physicians. The people who are employing emergency departments are benefiting off the extreme value we offer. They are not reinvesting that value in emergency departments, but instead taking advantage of it and asking for more.
COVID-19 has shined a spotlight on an emergency medicine management crisis that has existed for more than a decade.
An interview with Dr. Portia Jones, maternal and child health expert, about her work reducing risks in emergency obstetrics and raising the accessibility of quality care through vertically integrated training programs.
Amin Antoine Kazzi, an emergency physician with extensive experience in mass casualty management, shares details and reflections on the explosion that leveled Beirut in August 2020.
In 2014, recognizing the need for improved EM training, India’s Max SHBG hospital partnered with George Washington University (GWU) to start the Masters in Emergency Medicine (MEM) program, a 3 year residency training program in Emergency Medicine and acute care. To date, SHBG has graduated 18 MEM and 15 DNB Emergency Medicine residents. Max SHBG graduates have gone on to successful careers in India and around the world.
In August, 2018 India’s southern state of Kerala experienced its worst flood in over a century. Over a period of weeks, heavy rains, rising flood waters, and land slides left an estimate 483 dead and hundreds of thousands displaced. In response to the devastation, the National Health Mission, the district administration & ANGELS (Active Network Group of Emergency Life Savers) initiated ‘Operation Navajeevan,’ a joint private-public partnership with healthcare facilities & NGOs in the region to provide medical relief to flood victims. This article describes the relief efforts in Kozhikode, a costal region of Kerala, where operation Navajeevan was initiated.
When Dr. Nerendra Nath Jena first became head of the Emergency/Casualty Department (ED) at Meenakshi Mission Hospital & Research Center (MMHRC) in 2008, there wasn’t much of a department for him to lead. Still a year before Emergency Medicine (EM) would become a formally recognized specialty in India, the department at that time consisted of only 5 beds, tucked into a 3 x 5 meter entry way leading to the ambulance bay outside.
Located in the Eastern District of Delhi, Max Super Specialty Hospital, Patparjan (Max PPG) serves a diverse patient population stretching from far flung rural communities to India’s densely populated capital city. Prior to 2011, patients arriving to Max PPG were received in a casualty department, where they were examined by a rotating staff of physicians, none of whom had training in Emergency Medicine (EM). In 2011 the Emergency Departments (ED) began hiring EM trained physicians, and in 2016 they partnered with George Washington University (GWU) to start an EM post-graduate residency training program.
In Latin America, the development of pediatric emergency medicine over the last decade has been led mostly by pediatricians. However more recently as PEM recognition is rising, as the world understands the need for specialized care in emergency settings, and as Emergency Medicine is an increasingly recognized specialty in most countries in the region, PEM specialists have assumed a larger role in bringing together key leaders to improve care and coordinate resources for acutely ill and injured children
As part of an effort to improve emergency medical care, the Ministry of Health and the University of Health Sciences in Vientiane, in cooperation with the NGO Health Frontiers, launched the Lao Emergency Medicine Residency program. The first class of 8 residents started their 3-year training in September 2017 with the second class of 9 residents starting in September 2018.
Ghana has had a turbulent decade, but the growing specialty of emergency medicine has stood as a beacon of stability, and a training ground for West African healthcare providers.
On December 18, the International Federation for Emergency Medicine (IFEM) shared its first Statement on Minimum Standards for the Care of Older People in Emergency Departments. The statement was created by IFEM’s Geriatric Emergency Medicine Special Interest Group and published in the Canadian Journal of Emergency Medicine.
An emergency physician recalls the medical elective that introduced him to medical Spanish, as well as to the vibrant medical culture of the Mexican people.
