Emergency physician

Emergency physician
Occupation
NamesPhysician, Medical Specialist
Occupation type
Specialty
Activity sectors
Medicine
Description
Education required
Doctor of Medicine, Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine
Fields of
employment
Hospitals, Clinics, Helicopter Emergency Medical Service

An emergency physician (often called an “ER doctor” in the United States) is a physician who works at an emergency department to care for ill patients. The emergency physician is a specialist in advanced cardiac life support (advanced life support in Europe), resuscitation, trauma care such as fractures and soft tissue injuries, and management of other life-threatening situations.

In some European countries (e.g. Germany, Belgium, Poland, Austria, Denmark and Sweden), emergency physicians/anaesthetists[1] are also part of the emergency medical service and are dispatched together with EMTs and paramedics in cases of potentially life-threatening situations for patients (heart attacks, serious accidents, resuscitations or unconsciousness, strokes, drug overdoses, etc.). An emergency physician is a "Jack of all trades".[2] In the United States, emergency physicians are mostly hospital-based, but they often work on air ambulances and mobile intensive-care units.

When a patient is brought into the emergency department, he or she is usually sent to triage first. The patient may be triaged by an emergency physician, a paramedic, or a nurse; in the United States, triage is usually performed by a registered nurse. If the patient is admitted to the hospital, another physician such as a cardiologist or neurologist takes over from the emergency physician.

See also

References

  1. "Training". Ibtphem.org.uk. Archived from the original on 2014-04-13. Retrieved 2014-04-11.
  2. "Emergency Medicine - A Practical Perspective". Loyala University Medical Education Network. Retrieved 4 October 2020.

https://web.archive.org/web/20140413154824/http://www.ibtphem.org.uk/IBTPHEM/Training.html

This article is issued from Offline. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.