Emergency Medicine

The Family Medicine/Emergency Medicine Program at McMaster University is a one year program designed to provide physicians, who have completed a family medicine residency, with the specific competence to practice Emergency Medicine and the leadership skills to assess, promote, and integrate emergency health services in the community.

Both urban and community stream are available, depending on your career goals as a physician.

The teaching hospitals used are organized by specialty, such as burn/trauma, oncology, pediatric trauma, and emergency psychiatry. The hospitals, both urban and community, offer emergency departments with good patient volume supported by comprehensive medical and surgical services. Overall, the sites offer a wide range of patient problems.

Rotations will be tailored to your prior training and career goals. However, certain rotations are considered mandatory and must be completed. Rotations may include ICU, CCU, Surgery, Trauma, Orthopedics, Plastics and Emergency Medicine.

A “typical” residency year would include:

• 4 blocks – Emergency Medicine
• 1 block – Emergency Pediatrics
• 1 block – Trauma
• 2 blocks – ICU
• 1 block – CCU
• 1 block – Selective
• 1 block – Anesthesia
• 1 block – Plastics
• 1 block – Community Emergency Medicine

It is recommended that interested applicants ensure significant experience is gained in emergency pediatrics. We suggest using elective time in the first or second year of family medicine residency to obtain this experience.

Selectives

Selectives are completed in a variety of formats and approval is based on a set of criteria. Historically, Selectives have included Toxicology in New York City, or an additional block of Trauma, Emergency or Surgery (lumps and bumps). These Selective are tailored toward your stated objectives.

Academic Activities

Emergency Medicine core content material is covered during weekly academic half days. Thursday mornings are the Academic Half Day for Emergency Medicine. Sessions include core content, Tintinalli Rounds, Skill Sessions, radiology, examination preparation, bioethics, and administration.

In addition, there will be four Simulation Sessions with high fidelity simulators through the academic year. Finally, there is a day in the Anatomy Lab practicing procedures on cadavers.

Research / Rounds

Residents are expected to complete a resident research project on evidence-based medicine skills. It is expected you have the ability to search data bases, critically appraise the articles and present the material at Resident Research Day. This may take the form of a CQI/QA project, literature search or a formal research design study. It is expected that you will display competence in preparing, practicing and evaluating evidence-based medicine.

Course in Ultrasound

An Ultrasound (US) Course following the EDE principles is offered in the early fall of the year. This course teaches the technical skills and didactic principles of Point of Care US (POCUS). The remainder of the course is spent scanning volunteers to achieve the required number of scans. We have ample faculty available to assist with attaining the required scans for full certification if you are unable to do so during the US Course.