Core EM Clerkship Topics

Core EM Clerkship Topics

In the last ten years, there are few published undergraduate emergency medicine curriculum recommendations (Hobgood et al., 2009; Manthey et al., 2010; Penciner et al., 2013; Santen et al., 2014).

Current undergraduate curriculum trends recommend longitudinal and horizontal integration, and the topic lists related to emergency medicine are extensive for medical students.

In this post, we provide International Federation for Emergency Medicine and Society for Academic Emergency Medicine’s recommendations (Manthey et al., 2010; Hobgood et al., 2009).

The chosen topics can ideally be re-discussed in the clerkship during the senior years of medical school.

  • Abdominal pain
  • Altered mental status
  • Cardiac arrest and arrhythmias
  • Chest pain
  • GI bleeding
  • Headache
  • Multiple trauma
  • Poisoning
  • Respiratory distress
  • Shock

Because the length of the rotations can vary between institutions, the topics list can be extended according to the length of the clerkship and local needs.

References and Further Reading

  • Hobgood, C., Anantharaman, V., Bandiera, G., Cameron, P., Halperin, P., Holliman, J., … & International Federation for Emergency Medicine. (2009). International Federation for Emergency Medicine model curriculum for medical student education in emergency medicine. Canadian Journal of Emergency Medicine, 11(4), 349-354.
  • Manthey, D. E., Ander, D. S., Gordon, D. C., Morrissey, T., Sherman, S. C., Smith, M. D., … & Clerkship Directors in Emergency Medicine (CDEM) Curriculum Revision Group. (2010). Emergency medicine clerkship curriculum: an update and revision. Academic Emergency Medicine, 17(6), 638-643.
  • Penciner, R. (2009). Emergency medicine preclerkship observerships: evaluation of a structured experience. Canadian Journal of Emergency Medicine, 11(3), 235-239.
  • Santen, S. A., Peterson, W. J., Khandelwal, S., House, J. B., Manthey, D. E., & Sozener, C. B. (2014). Medical student milestones in emergency medicine. Academic Emergency Medicine, 21(8), 905-911.

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