“What makes emergency medicine different from regular medicine?”

In emergency medicine, we seek to eliminate the possibility of a life or limb threat. In other words we focus on conditions which, if not treated right now, could result in your immediate demise or loss of function of a limb or one of the senses. Once those problems are ruled out, we send you home with instructions to continue care through your primary doctor.

We focus on emergency conditions. Absent one of those, you can see your doctor and let them figure out the rest of your care.

In Emergency, we deal most of the time with problems that need immediate attention to correct and prevent further deterioration. In Medicine, there is no such pressure

It is not necessarily different than regular medicine but, since the late 1970s, emergency medicine became a specialty in its own right. As a medical student in the early 90's I chose to become an emergency physician. I did a 3-year residency in emergency medicine and became a board-certified emergency physician. Emergency medicine encompasses a specific, and large, knowledgebase, which is why emergency medicine residencies started and it became a specialty. Board-certified emergency physicians have had more training in all of the many medical problems that may present in the er than, say a family medicine dr, or a surgeon. There are many ER's still who do not have board-certified emergency physicians, as there is a shortage, but that shortage is shrinking, and today there are more bc er physicians than ever. In summary, emergency medicine is a specialty of medicine that encompasses any possible emergency situation that may present to the emergency department.

Emergency medicine is nothing different than regular medicine, except an ER physician treats urgent conditions, and a regular medicine doctor the non-urgent conditions.

It is often dealing with situations that are life and death. You often do not have a full history and you must make decisions quickly on your feet. Often patients are not known to the doctors as opposed to general medicine practice where the patient is known to the doctors

We are based in hospital emergency departments and are trained to treat a variety of life threatening and non-life threatening emergencies as wall as thousands of non-emergent medical conditions and illnesses.