Being a resident is not an easy task. They are faced with many challenges, one of which being rotating through different programs throughout their residency careers. When an off-service resident (non-emergency medicine resident, ie Internal Medicine, Med-Peds, Family Medicine, Pediatrics) rotates with us in the Emergency Department our goal is to provide them the best education possible to immerse them in the Emergency Medicine experience via didactic material, direct patient care and procedural experience. Off-service residents work in four emergency departments; Greenville Memorial, Hillcrest, Greer Memorial and Oconee Hospitals. Each experience is unique when it comes to patient demographics, patient expectation, level of academia, and patient care. As you can imagine, patient care changes drastically when practicing in a rural environment (Oconee) community hospital (Greer/Hillcrest) and a Level 1 trauma center (Greenville Memorial). This is very unique to our program and allows off-service residents to learn the limitations of each emergency department and helps them understand why the practice of emergency medicine changes based on clinical setting.
The emergency room is a unique place as we see all extremes of patient care, which adds to the difficulty of the rotation. All residents are expected to see patients of various age groups, acuity and chief complaints.While working in the ED, our goal is to ensure that each resident learns how the Emergency Department functions as a whole, how to manage "can’t miss" diagnoses, and truly feels like a part of the ED team. We encourage residents to be eager to learn and try to see a wide range of pathology during their rotation. I have found this helps to optimize the learning experience. As each resident advances in training and returns to the ED for subsequent rotations, our expectations increase and we hope to see an increase their patient volume and improvement in their differentials, dispositions and overall patient management.
As the Emergency Medicine residency grows, we aim to improve the experiences provided to off-service residents. I have aspirations of providing off-service residents with a well-rounded experience which includes, but is not limited to, independent learning via journal articles, pre-made PowerPoints, procedure/ US labs, Pre and post assessments, bed side teaching, and other modes of teaching/learning. My overarching goal is to make this the most enjoyable and beneficial off-service rotation for all visiting residents. If you have any questions about our off-service resident experience in the ED please contact me at Raymond.Chahoud@prismahealth.org
