Residency Program

The Department of Emergency Medicine Residency Program at the University of Texas Medical School at Houston is dedicated to improving the health and welfare of urgent and emergent patients of all ages.

The Residency

The University of Texas Health Science Center Department of Emergency Medicine residency was founded in 1992. We are a PGY1-3 program with 12 residents per training year. The residents are supervised 24 hours per day by faculty board certified in Emergency Medicine with 46 hours per day of EM faculty coverage and an additional 12 hours per day of Pediatric faculty coverage by both Pediatric and Pediatric EM board certified physicians. The residency is fully accredited by the ACGME and Emergency Medicine Residency Review Committee.

Residents rotate in the emergency department for a total of five and a half months as an EM I, a total of ten months as an EM II, and for eight months as an EM III with progressive increases in responsibility each training year. The Memorial Herman - Texas Medical Center emergency department sees approximately 60,000 patients per year and has high acuity with an approximate 30% admission rate from the ED. As such, our residents develop excellent resuscitation and critical care skills. The approximate mix of patient pathology is:

Trauma/Surgical: 33%
Medical: 32%
Ob/Gyn: 8%
Pediatric: 25%
Psychiatric: 1%

Residents are involved first hand with critical patient care and ongoing multispecialty research, including research in trauma resuscitation, prehospital thrombolytics and cardiac resuscitation, early goal directed therapy in sepsis, thrombolytics and early interventional therapies for acute stroke, emergency ultrasound, pediatric emergency medicine, neurologic emergency treatment trials (NETT), educational research, and error reduction, among others.

Two incoming EM III residents are chosen as Chief Residents in the late PGYII year by the faculty based of many factors: patient care, didactic and academic standing, patient and resident advocacy, leadership and communication skills. The position includes a stipend, attendance at the SAEM chief’s conference, and responsibilities for resident scheduling, mediation, participation in Education Committee monthly meetings and faculty monthly meetings, and other leadership activities with the administration of the residency.

We provide specific class retreats for the EM II and EM III years. We also provide specific skills and procedure labs focused on each training year, such as our resuscitation skills lab prior to the EM II year to prepare for upper level responsibilities.