Hey all, I'm hoping someone here might be able to help me out... I'm a resident in an Emergency Medicine program in New York City. Next year, we have a 4-week elective that we can do anywhere in the world, in any specialty. For most people in my residency, including myself, this is pretty much a 4-week vacation. (Heavy emphasis on the "elective" part, as in, "I ELECT not to go in this week." I know it sounds bad, but it's a nice break from the chaos that comes with any urban ER.) I'm interested in going to either Stockholm or Helsinki. Any idea whom I need to contact? Hospital, medicial school, or individual doctor contacts would be greatly appreciated. Hope to hear from you guys soon, sudeesh
Sudeesh, you might want to look into the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. It is a world-renowned medical facility that will have bascially anything you're wanting to do. I'm sure they accomodate physicians from abroad for a medical elective. Hope this helps.
Hello Sudeesh, I don't know an answer to your question but would like to ask you something instead. Even though I'm only fifth year I have some idea to what I would like to be doing after graduation: Emergency Medicine. It sounds really exciting that you're into that field in a big city like NYC. Could you maybe tell me some more about what you do every day and how you got your residency there? You can e-mail me if it's not too much trouble. Good luck on finding a four week residency in Europe. Dutch Doc
There's a poster from Sweden, El Duderino, who might help you with some names to contact. Go to the general residency forum, which is where I've seen him post lately, and PM him through there. Good luck.
Hey you guys, thanks so far for your help, I'll be sure to get in touch with the Karolinska Institute and this "el duderino" dude. Dutch Doc, I was gonna send you an email about Emergency Medicine, but I figured I'd put it up here in case anyone else may be interested. If you're thinking about doing EM in the US, this may (or may not) be useful. Most urban EM prorgams (or ER programs, same thing) are either at a Level 1 Trauma Center, or are affiliated with such a center. What this means is that at some point in your residency you'll be exposed to pretty much every kind of trauma under the sun--gunshots, stabbings, MVA (motor vehicle accidents), burns, falls, jumpers, etc. (My favorite is the guy who jumped off a 13-story building and landed on his head, and was actually alive when the ambulance brought him in--the CAT scan of his head was pretty cool.) The number of trauma patients across the country has decreased since the crack wars of the 80's, but it's still something I think every ER doc should be able to deal with efficiently. Apart from the trauma you deal with the more medical stuff like the chest pains, abdominal pains, headaches, vaginal bleeders, back pain, all that stuff. You also have to deal with the less appealing clientele, like the alcoholics and homeless people and the "my left toe has been hurting me for the past 6 years so I decided to come into the ER at 3 in the morning on your shift and make your life a little more difficult" patient. Ancillary services in most urban ER's are virtually nonexistent, so you're drawing most of the bloods, wheeling the patients to XRay, screaming at the XRay tech, etc. It's chaotic and hectic and exhausting, but you walk away with some incredible stories. Now, if you're interested in doing Emergency Medicine in the US, here are a couple of things to think about. EM was the 6th hardest residency to get into when I applied back in 1999, I don't know if it's gone up or down since then. Unfortunately it's even more difficult for FMG's. There are 3 or 4 FMG's in my program (averaging one per class), but all of them transferred into Emergency Medicine either halfway through or after finishing a Surgery or Internal Medicine residency. I definitely did NOT rock my Boards, but as an FMG you'd probably need to. Don't let the numbers discourage you though. I didn't think I had a chance in a million of matching, and I came through with my first choice. So if you're still thinking about Emergency Medicine when it's time for you to make your decision, this is what I suggest you do (I don't know if it works for everyone, but it worked for me): Try to do TWO away electives, one at a top-tier program and one at a medium-tier program. (If you're interested in EM in the New York City area, email me and I'll let you know which ones are considered top-notch and which ones aren't). Do the elective at the medium-tier program first; this way you'll have time to get used to ER environment, learn the terminology that gets tossed around, become good at what's expected of you as a student, and so on. Then when you go to the top-tier program you'll be ready to rock their world. Get to know the Attendings, show them that you're 1) enthusiastic, 2) curious, and 3) a nice person. Do NOT kiss @$$, most of us can see that from a mile away. You don't even need to be that smart (I know I wasn't when I was a med student). As long as you present yourself as being the kind of person they would want to work next to for the next 3 or 4 years, you're way ahead of most other med students. Anyway, hope this helps. Email me if you have any other questions, sudeesh
The Dude is in... For someone interested in emergency medicine in Stockholm, I think it's hard to go past the S?dersjukhuset (S?S (hilarious acronym for a hospital, but still)), which I think has the largest ER facilities in Sweden. I haven't been there myself, but I think it's quite different from what you are used to in the US. Shootings invariably get national news coverage in Sweden - they are comparably very rare. Up until recently, there hasn't even been traditional ER docs in Sweden, the services usually provided by ER docs in the US have been split between internists, surgeons, neurologists and orthopedic surgeons. ER residencies have only been around for a couple of years, and I think this reform was largely initialized at the S?S. S?S is located in downtown Stockholm, and I think they would welcome international visitors. According to their webpage (which, incredibly, is available only in Swedish) you can send an email to some sort of information manager at [email protected]. Good luck, and let us know what happens!
