Emergency medicine is a branch of medicine that is practiced in a hospital emergency department, in the field (in a modified form – see EMS), and other locations where initial medical treatment of illness takes place.
Emergency medicine focuses on diagnosis and treatment of acute illnesses and injuries that require immediate care. While not usually providing long-term care, EM physicians and pre-hospital personnel still provide care with the aim of improving long-term patient outcome. In the United States, some people use the emergency department for outpatient care that could be provided at a doctor’s office. As a result, much of emergency room care is general practice (coughs, colds, aches, pains).
A variant of an Emergency Department is an Urgent Care Center, often staffed by non-Emergency Medicine trained physicians and/or nurses, which treats patients who desire or require immediate care, but do not reach the acuity that requires care in an emergency department.
Emergency Medicine involves a large amount of general medicine but involves all fields of medicine including the surgical sub-specialties. Emergency Physicians are tasked with seeing a large number of patients, treating their illnesses and admitting them to the hospital as necessary. The field requires a broad field of knowledge and requires advance procedural skills often including surgical procedures, trauma resuscitation, advance cardiac life support and advanced airway management.