The short answer
- If you love the variety, the pace and the first hour of someone’s illness, emergency medicine might be for you.
- Your ED term is the best test: notice which shifts leave you tired but pleased.
- Whatever you choose, the ED teaches skills you’ll use for the rest of your career.
On this page
What it feels like
The pace is the first thing you’ll notice. There’s always another patient, and the board never empties. Shift work means you’ll do days, evenings, nights and weekends, often in the same week.
The hardest part for most juniors is deciding who can go home. On the ward, someone else made that call. Here, you’ll make it many times a shift, with a senior’s help.
The best part is that you can make a real difference in an hour: the pain that settles, the diagnosis that’s caught, the patient who leaves reassured. Your coffee will go cold at least once a shift. That’s normal.
What you’ll take away, whatever you choose
Whatever you do next, the ED teaches skills you’ll use for the rest of your career: assessing someone fast, deciding what matters, talking to strangers at their worst, and referring well.
How emergency medicine training works
Most trainees enter run-through training with the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM), starting in ACCS (acute care common stem) at ST1 and running through to ST6.
Signs you’ve found your feet
- You pick up the next patient without scanning the board for an easy one.
- You present with a plan, and your senior mostly agrees with it.
- You know who to call for what.
- Your handovers are short, and nothing comes back to you.
Starting your term? Read the emergency medicine survival guide first.
General education for doctors, not advice about a particular patient. Your hospital’s policies and your seniors always come first.
Sources (1)
- Training OverviewRoyal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM)
Adapted from Get Started in Emergency, UK Edition.