I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt.
- Duration of preparation: becoming an Emergency Physician in the US typically requires 4 years of college (during which you have to take certain pre-requisite courses such as a couple of semesters each of chemistry, physics, biology, organic chemistry; otherwise your major can be more or less whatever you want), 4 years of medical school, and then residency training in Emergency Medicine (which can be either 3 or 4 years long depending on the program). After that you are an Emergency Medicine Attending Physician (also known as EM physician, ED doc, ER doc, etc). So a total of 11-12 years.
- Studies and exams required: Not sure what you mean by 'studies'. If you mean what educational background is required, see the answer above. In terms of exams, it's fairly similar to that of every other US doctor:
- SAT to get into college
- MCAT to get into medical school
- USMLE step I
- USMLE step II CK
- USMLE step II CS
- USMLE step III
- +/- NBME shelf exams for every clerkship in medical school
- ABEM ITE every year during residency
- ABEM written board exam
- ABEM oral board exam
- Small ABEM re-certification exam every year after that
- Big ABEM re-certification exam every 10 years after that
- Tuition / Student Loans: varies highly by your choice of school, whether you get in-state tuition, how much your parents/spouse help you, etc. It is not uncommon to graduate with >$200,000 of debt. Some people manage to graduate debt free. One way to do that (if you are a US citizen and not independently wealthy) is to take a scholarship from the US military.
- Work Salary: varies highly based on location, hours worked, and other factors that are too detailed to go into at this stage of the game. Suffice to say that most EM docs' annual income from clinical practice will fall in the $200,000 - $300,000 range.
- Positions / Responsibilities (Surgeon, Nurse, anything else?): Surgeons don't typically work in the ER except when we call them to consult on a patient. There are lots of people working in the ER, but I assume you are not inquiring about janitors, A/C repairmen, security guards, etc, but are asking about who gets to work in the ER clinically. In which case, most commonly it is:
- EM physicians: they evaluate patients, make decisions on medical care, perform emergent procedures, prescribe medications, and do a lot of paperwork.
- Nurses: in addition to performing their own, independent evaluation of patients, they provide most of the actual care ordered by the physicians. They administer most medications, assist patients, etc. They are also in charge of triage, which is a process by which the ER sorts out who gets seen first. More senior also often take on other non clinical leadership positions (think management).
- Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants: are so called 'midlevel providers'. They are typically used as 'physician extenders' in the sense that they see a patient independently from the physician who has to provide some supervision (which varies widely by hospital from having the physician also see each patient seen by an NP/PA to having them only sign some of the charts). These providers can do a lot if not all of the stuff EM physicians do, depending on what the hospital, state, their supervising physician, and their malpractice insurance allows them to do (all of these are highly variable).
- Levels: I assume you mean levels of training? While you are in residency, you are an EM resident. Once you graduate residency, you are an EM attending. Unlike some other countries, there is no title to distinguish senior vs junior attendings (such as the UK's specialist vs consultant). If you work in an academic medical center (ER that's part of a university hospital) you will often have a separate, academic title that can range from instructor to professor.
- What you have to do in a typical day? In a sense every day is exactly the same, but the specifics of what patients show up and what you need to do for them varies. A typical day may be:
- show up to the ER shortly before your shift begins
- take sign out from the doc who is leaving (he tells you about any patients that are in the ER that are going to be under your care)
- see some patients with belly pain, some with headache, some with chest pain, some vomiting, some with a fever or whatever come through the door (emphasized because that is the entire point)
- decide what needs to be done for them (medications, procedures, admit to hospital, discharge to go home)
- deal with a life-or-death emergency that rolls through the door
- if you are lucky, inhale a sandwich
- if you are in an academic medical center, teach some residents or medical students something
- do lots of paperwork
- sign out to the doc coming to relieve you at the end of your 8, 10 or 12 hour shift
- go home
