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Emergency Medicine Physicians

Make immediate medical decisions and act to prevent death or further disability. Provide immediate recognition, evaluation, care, stabilization, and disposition of patients. May direct emergency medical staff in an emergency department.

What you’d do

  • Select, request, perform, or interpret diagnostic procedures, such as laboratory tests, electrocardiograms, emergency ultrasounds, and radiographs.
  • Evaluate patients' vital signs or laboratory data to determine emergency intervention needs and priority of treatment.
  • Perform emergency resuscitations on patients.
  • Stabilize patients in critical condition.
  • Perform such medical procedures as emergent cricothyrotomy, endotracheal intubation, and emergency thoracotomy.
  • Analyze records, examination information, or test results to diagnose medical conditions.
  • Consult with hospitalists and other professionals, such as social workers, regarding patients' hospital admission, continued observation, transition of care, or discharge.
  • Conduct primary patient assessments that include information from prior medical care.

Skills that matter

  • Active Listening
  • Critical Thinking
  • Reading Comprehension
  • Social Perceptiveness
  • Speaking
  • Complex Problem Solving

How to get there

Extensive preparation: most need graduate school, such as a master's degree or higher

Also called

  • Attending Emergency Physician
  • Emergency Medicine Physician (EM Physician)
  • Emergency Physician
  • Physician
  • Attending Physician
  • Emergency MD (Emergency Medicine Doctor)

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