What does an emergency medicine specialist do?
Emergency medicine specialists are healthcare professionals who are responsible for treating patients with immediate care in emergency rooms or trauma centers. These specialists are required to possess skills in advanced cardiac life support, trauma care, and management of other life-threatening conditions. They must lead a team of other medical professionals during situations that are intense and stressful while making a split second lifesaving diagnosis on their patients. Emergency medicine specialists must also maintain accurate medical records to understand the medical history of their patients.
Emergency medicine specialist responsibilities
Here are examples of responsibilities from real emergency medicine specialist resumes:
- Chart patient logs on the EMR.
- Perform EKG testing and acquire patient vitals.
- Assist the physician with EKG's, examinations, procedures and other duties.
- Identify proper equipment and machine use, including goal-direct focused ultrasound to accurately diagnose and quickly resuscitate patients.
- Perform appropriate history and physical examination to a diverse caseload of patients and order appropriate diagnostic lab work and studies.
- Develop an ambulatory pediatrics curriculum for family medicine residents
- Develop an ambulatory pediatrics curriculum for family medicine residents
Emergency medicine specialist skills and personality traits
We calculated that 32% of Emergency Medicine Specialists are proficient in Emergency Medicine, Patients, and Critical Care. They’re also known for soft skills such as Communication skills, Compassion, and Detail oriented.
We break down the percentage of Emergency Medicine Specialists that have these skills listed on their resume here:
- Emergency Medicine, 32%
Worked in Adult, Pediatric, and Rapid Assessment Emergency Medicine departments.
- Patients, 26%
Identified proper equipment and machine use, including goal-directed focused ultrasound to accurately diagnose and quickly resuscitate patients.
- Critical Care, 8%
Achieved clinical excellence in different hospital settings, which included critical care units, medical floors and the continuity care clinic.
- Patient Care, 7%
Average patient care census of 25-30 per day.
- Acls, 5%
Assisted/observed in multiple procedures such as lumbar punctures, endotracheal intubation, central line insertion, and ACLS protocols.
- IM, 4%
Started IVs, drew blood, performed EKGs, administered joint and IM injections, and wrote admission orders.
"emergency medicine," "patients," and "critical care" are among the most common skills that emergency medicine specialists use at work. You can find even more emergency medicine specialist responsibilities below, including:
Communication skills. To carry out their duties, the most important skill for an emergency medicine specialist to have is communication skills. Their role and responsibilities require that "physicians and surgeons need to be excellent communicators." Emergency medicine specialists often use communication skills in their day-to-day job, as shown by this real resume: "managed patient care in a high patient volume environment requiring multi-tasking, quick decision making, and concise communication. "
Compassion. Many emergency medicine specialist duties rely on compassion. "patients who are sick or injured may be in extreme pain or distress," so an emergency medicine specialist will need this skill often in their role. This resume example is just one of many ways emergency medicine specialist responsibilities rely on compassion: "provided safe, effective and compassionate patient care under supervision of senior medical resident or faculty. "
Detail oriented. This is an important skill for emergency medicine specialists to perform their duties. For an example of how emergency medicine specialist responsibilities depend on this skill, consider that "patients must receive appropriate treatment and medications." This excerpt from a resume also shows how vital it is to everyday roles and responsibilities of an emergency medicine specialist: "detailed patient assessment, management, and resuscitation of acutely ill medical patients. ".
Dexterity. For certain emergency medicine specialist responsibilities to be completed, the job requires competence in "dexterity." The day-to-day duties of an emergency medicine specialist rely on this skill, as "physicians and surgeons may work with very precise and sometimes sharp tools, and mistakes can have serious consequences." For example, this snippet was taken directly from a resume about how this skill applies to what emergency medicine specialists do: "gained extensive hands on experience in acute care of adult, pediatric/neonatal and pregnant patients. "
Leadership skills. A commonly-found skill in emergency medicine specialist job descriptions, "leadership skills" is essential to what emergency medicine specialists do. Emergency medicine specialist responsibilities rely on this skill because "physicians who work in their own practice must manage a staff of other professionals." You can also see how emergency medicine specialist duties rely on leadership skills in this resume example: "collaborated with residency program leadership to assist in the preparation for intern applicant interviews and weekly didactic sessions"
Organizational skills. While "organizational skills" is last on this skills list, don't underestimate its importance to emergency medicine specialist responsibilities. Much of what an emergency medicine specialist does relies on this skill, seeing as "good recordkeeping and other organizational skills are critical in both medical and business settings." Here is a resume example of how this skill is used in the everyday duties of emergency medicine specialists: "develop and execute the annual internal review plan to address organizational weaknesses and concerns. "
The three companies that hire the most emergency medicine specialists are:
- KPG13 emergency medicine specialists jobs
- The Medicus Firm
10 emergency medicine specialists jobs
- West Virginia University7 emergency medicine specialists jobs
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Compare different emergency medicine specialists
Emergency medicine specialist vs. Doctor
A doctor is a medical expert who diagnoses and treats illnesses and injuries, often specializing in particular areas. Their responsibilities revolve around conducting initial interviews and examinations, studying a patient's medical history and laboratory results, providing consultations and care advice, prescribing medication, and referring patients to specialists when necessary. They must also coordinate and maintain an active communication line with nurses, administrators, and technicians for a smooth workflow. Moreover, a doctor must educate patients about their health conditions, helping them understand their situation better.
There are some key differences in the responsibilities of each position. For example, emergency medicine specialist responsibilities require skills like "critical care," "acls," "im," and "epic." Meanwhile a typical doctor has skills in areas such as "customer service," "surgery," "dr," and "strong work ethic." This difference in skills reveals the differences in what each career does.
Doctors really shine in the health care industry with an average salary of $178,767. Comparatively, emergency medicine specialists tend to make the most money in the professional industry with an average salary of $162,827.doctors tend to reach lower levels of education than emergency medicine specialists. In fact, doctors are 23.1% less likely to graduate with a Master's Degree and 23.3% more likely to have a Doctoral Degree.Emergency medicine specialist vs. Hospital fellow
Each career also uses different skills, according to real emergency medicine specialist resumes. While emergency medicine specialist responsibilities can utilize skills like "emergency medicine," "patients," "critical care," and "patient care," hospital fellows use skills like "hospital operations," "surgery," "mph," and "healthcare professionals."
In general, hospital fellows achieve lower levels of education than emergency medicine specialists. They're 21.8% less likely to obtain a Master's Degree while being 23.3% more likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.Emergency medicine specialist vs. Resident doctor
The required skills of the two careers differ considerably. For example, emergency medicine specialists are more likely to have skills like "im," "epic," "bls," and "emt." But a resident doctor is more likely to have skills like "internal medicine," "general surgery," "outpatient clinic," and "pediatrics."
When it comes to education, resident doctors tend to earn lower degree levels compared to emergency medicine specialists. In fact, they're 21.6% less likely to earn a Master's Degree, and 23.6% less likely to graduate with a Doctoral Degree.Emergency medicine specialist vs. Rheumatologist
Types of emergency medicine specialist
Updated January 8, 2025
