Emergency medicine is one of several medical specialties a new doctor may choose.
Emergency medicine physicians are found in urgent care centers and emergency rooms throughout the U.S. Emergency room physicians are trained to treat acute illness and injury and typically see a wide variety of patients on any given work day. This is one aspect that makes emergency medicine an attractive field to many.
Duties
Emergency physicians treat both adult and pediatric patients. They are responsible for treating acute or sudden illnesses such as flu, food poisoning and fever. They also treat patients who have been hurt in accidents. Some of the injuries they deal with are quite serious, such as head trauma, broken bones and gunshot wounds. Additionally, they see patients who are suffering heart attacks and strokes. An emergency room doctor must be level-headed and able to make quick decisions in life or death situations. The stress of working in these conditions can take its toll; the job can lead to burnout, leaving the physician no other choice but to train in another specialty of medicine in order to switch fields. Most people who choose a career in emergency medicine do so in part for the reward and excitement of saving lives.
Hours
Emergency rooms must have personnel on staff ready to see patients 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The emergency room is always open regardless of holidays or severe weather. For this reason, a person considering a career in the emergency room must be willing to work at all times of the day. This can mean working the night shift one week and the day shift the next week--something that can wreak havoc on a person's circadian rhythms. Additionally, the shifts worked by an ER doctor average 12 hours. However, one benefit emergency physicians have over their counterparts in other specialties is the lack of taking call. Not having to be on call means that an ER doctor can be confident he will not have to break plans or leave a family function to go into work. Nonetheless, the hours are not for everyone.
Training
Physicians planning to specialize in emergency medicine can expect to spend three to four years training in residency after medical school; most internships are three years long. The Society for Academic Emergency Medicine advocates that residency programs limit physicians in training to working a maximum of 12 hours per day and 60 hours per week. During this time, residents get hands-on training in order to gain the skills needed to work independently in the future.
Outlook
The Occupational Outlook Handbook for 2010 to 2011 cites job outlook for physicians and surgeons to be very good, with employment to grow faster than average, especially as the population ages and retires. Employment opportunities will be especially abundant for those who wish to work in underserved communities and rural areas. Emergency room physicians are especially vital to these communities, as many of them rely on physicians from adjacent cities to care for their general health needs.
Salary
Physicians are among the highest paid professionals in the work force. Emergency medicine physicians earned between $216,000 and $300,000 annually, according to a July 2008 survey in Modern Healthcare. This is higher than the pay earned by most general practitioners, who average $140,000 to $210,000 per year in family medicine, pediatrics and internal medicine.
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