Preface to Emergency Medicine

Mark D. Lopez, MD & Chris Fly, MD

(originally by Hartmut Gross, M.D. & W. (Ted) Kuhn, M.D.)

Beginning in 1997, MCG made the EMED 5001 (and later EMED 5012) course a selective for all senior medical students. Students rotate through one of the following: the MCG Emergency Department or Eisenhower Emergency Department, Augusta, GA; Candler/St. Joseph Emergency Department in Savannah, GA; Phoebe Putney Emergency Department in Albany, GA; Tift Medical Center in Tifton, Georgia; or Aiken Regional Hospital Emergency Department in nearby Aiken, South Carolina. Additional rotation sites are added only if there is genuine interest in teaching students and if there is sufficient teaching material to ensure an adequate clinical experience, both in quality and quantity. The EMED 5012 course is arranged by students at other sites who already educate medical students; however, students must fulfill all the other requirements of the EMED 5001 course in addition to any required at the off site location.

Each of you will work in one of the Emergency Departments for a total of approximately 150 hours for the month, rotating through all the shifts. (Approximately 40 hours per week after EMS time experience is added.)

Those who rotate in the Augusta area will have didactic lectures with the Emergency Medicine residents as well as lectures designed and given solely to our rotating students. These lectures include a splinting workshop, simulator use, emergency ultrasound, radiology reading, and a suture lab. We will expand these lectures as we continue to improve the rotation.

We are currently using the text An Introduction to Clinical Emergency Medicine by S.V. Mahadevan and Gus M. Garmel. The text is loaned to our rotators by the department of Emergency Medicine so there is no text to buy. We do not require any other text for the purposes of this rotation.

We encourage students from outside institutions to rotate here at the Medical College of Georgia. Please contact our office at emclerkship@mcg.edu  for more information.

Lastly, we truly hope that you enjoy your month in Emergency Medicine. Over the years, we have found this specialty to be unusually challenging and stimulating. If we achieve our goal you will not only gain a fundamental understanding of what the ED can provide, its limitations, and how to use it properly; but from time to time you will fondly think back to your experience, or recall special moments in the Emergency Department, no matter what specialty you ultimately pursue.

Mark D. Lopez, MD,
FACEP, FAAEM
Clerkship Co-Director
Pavilion II, AF-1013
(706) 721-7144

Christopher A. Fly, MD
Clerkship Co-Director
Pavilion II, AF-1014
(706) 721-7144
 

Susan Valle
Clerkship Program Specialist
Pavilion II, AF-1024
(706) 721-4412
emclerkship@mcg.edu