Dear Colleagues:
I have had the opportunity to directly experience our emergency care on too many occasions recently, but am happy to report that my care has been exemplary. As as a former EM practicing physician, I know that many people do not really understand what happens in the ED. I occasionally borrow/summarize posts from the monthly blog/newsletter, KevinMD Plus, and thought I would share some of the most useful points I found on that blog that concerned Emergency Medicine.
- Yes, Emergency Medicine IS a specialty. And furthermore, there are EM subspecialty certifications, like pediatric emergency medicine, toxicology, hyperbaric and undersea medicine to name a few. In addition to being specialists in medical emergencies, they are trained to be the extension of all of the other specialists in medicine to figure out whether you have an emergency and how to best direct you from there because, unlike other specialists, they are available to see you 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year completely independent of your ability to pay.
- EM docs are efficient, but they can’t do everything from the ED. Not everything can be ordered and performed from the Emergency Department. EM physicians are trained for evaluating whether you have a medical emergency or issue that requires you to be admitted or have an urgent procedure.
- EM physicians are primarily there for emergencies. This means that even though almost 50 percent of medical care in the U.S. is provided in the ED, not all of that care is emergent.
- Your doctor may have sent you to the ED, but what the EM physician recommends may not be what they sent you for. People are sent to the ED because their problem cannot be adequately evaluated by phone. So even though your provider thought you might need lab work, an X-ray or in-person consultation with an orthopedist, he or she has not actually seen you. After an EM evaluation, your needs may end up being very different.
- EM physicians spend a lot of time sitting. They are required to enter a lot of electronic data as well as a lot of communicating with other providers all over the health care system, which means we are often talking to, waiting to talk to or trying to reach someone to talk to on the phone.
- ED staff get interrupted. A lot. We are used to multitasking because all of the staff are working to take care of multiple people at one time. A recent study showed that EM doctors are interrupted an average of 12.5 times/hour during a shift. Please be patient if we get called away in the middle of tending to your needs. We honestly wouldn’t interrupt our time with you if we didn’t have to.
- Sometimes it seems like the ED is understaffed. And that’s because sometimes it is! EDs are staffed to the average volume, in general, so some days we are relatively understaffed because the volume is higher than normal. Everyone is taking care of multiple people at once, working on a “to do” list that never ends. We have to prioritize by what medically needs to happen first.
- Every patient is a VIP.Treating people differently based on who they are or who they know is not in ED docs’ genes. EM physicians work in the ED because they want to take care of everyone’s needs to the best of their ability.
So, why this discussion about Emergency physicians? Perhaps to heighten everyone’s awareness of the importance of our EDs as the front door of our institutions, but most important, to focus your attention on one of Shore Regional Health’s Emergency Medicine’s icons! As Dr. Michael Joyce will soon step down from his Emergency Medicine and Shore Regional Health leadership positions, please thank him for all that he has done for so many patients, for Emergency Medicine as a specialty, and for all of Shore Regional Health — and encourage him to continue on for occasional ED shifts in the future… Godspeed and thanks, Dr. Joyce!
Thank you to each of you for all that you have done and will continue to do for our patients, your loved ones, each other and all of Shore Regional Health! Am hoping you and yours have the Happiest of Holidays and a Healthy, Happy and Hopeful New Year!
Sincerely,
William E. Huffner, MD, MBA, FACEP, FACHE
Chief Medical Officer/ Senior Vice President – Medical Affairs
219 S. Washington Street
Easton, Maryland 21601
Phone: 410-822-1000, ext. 5867
Fax: 410-822-2147
Email: whuffner@umm.edu