Emergency Medicine

Schematic diagram of a normal sinus rhythm for a human heart as seen on an ECG.
Focus	Acute medicine
Subdivisions	Toxicology, Pediatrics, Critical Care
Significantdiseases	Injuries, Mental health, Acute illness
Significanttests	Blood test, Chest radiograph, X-ray computed tomography
Specialist	Emergency Physician

Emergency medicine is a medical specialty involving care for adult andpediatric patients with acute illnesses or injuries that require immediate medical attention. While not usually providing long-term or continuing care, emergency physicians, who usually have a D.O. or M.D. degree, diagnose a variety of illnesses and undertake acute interventions to resuscitate and stabilize patients. Emergency medicine physicians generally practice inhospital emergency departments, pre-hospital settings via emergency medical services, other locations where initial medical treatment of illness takes place, and recently the intensive-care unit. Just as clinicians operate by immediacy rules under large emergency systems, emergency practitioners aim to diagnose emergent conditions and stabilize the patient for definitive care.

Physicians specializing in emergency medicine in the USA and Canada can enter fellowships to receive credentials in subspecialties. These arepalliative care, critical-care medicine, medical toxicology, wilderness medicine, pediatric emergency medicine, sports medicine, disaster medicine, tactical medicine, ultrasound, pain medicine, emergency medical services, and undersea and hyperbaric medicine.

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