Emergency Medicine and Emergency Physicians

Everyone dreads getting injured. When someone injures himself or is not feeling well, he goes to the emergency room (ER). While in tremendous pain, he is caught up in the chaos of the ER where he must wait, sometimes for hours, for an emergency physician. Emergency physicians try their best to help patients feel better, ordering numerous tests that help them determine what’s wrong. Eventually, patients all leave the hospital, feeling much better than when they came. Emergency Physicians provide primary care to a host of patients entering hospital ERs with illnesses and injuries covering a broad spectrum, from acute infections to life-threatening conditions.

In order to become an emergency physician, one begins by getting an undergraduate degree from an accredited college (“Emergency Room Physician Salary”). During college, most people major in either biology or chemistry, but it is not necessary for students to follow a pre-medical course of study in college. Nevertheless, students will need to take all the required sciences, including organic and inorganic chemistry, biology, microbiology, and anatomy. Another requirement for entering medical school is taking the MCAT, which students often take during their third year of undergraduate study (“Emergency Room Doctors”).

Only a fraction of the tens of thousands of applicants who apply to American medical schools are accepted. In addition to academics, medical schools are looking for people that are diverse and well rounded. The first two years of medical school are devoted to classroom and laboratory work. Students study more science while taking classes in psychology, medical ethics, and law. In the third and fourth years, students continue classroom work, but al...

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... 111). Emergency room doctors are specialists who treat victims of accidents or sudden illness, while making quick, accurate judgments and operating as a head of a team. Working as an emergency physician can be stressful and exhausting, but it offers many opportunities and is a very exciting and rewarding career.

Works Cited

“Emergency Room Doctors.” Exploring Health Careers. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2006. Print.

“Emergency Room Doctor: Salary and Career Facts.” Degree Directory. 2013. Web. 30 October 2013.

“Emergency Room Physician Salary.” Healthcare Salaries. 2013. Web. 30 October 2013.

“Emergency Room Physician.” Vocational Biographies. Series C, Vol. 2, No. 4. 1999. Print.

Sacks, Terence. Careers in Medicine. Chicago: Contemporary Publishing Group, 1997. Print.

“The Emergency Medicine Jobs Outlook.” KPS Physicians Staffing. 2007. Web. 30 October 2013.