Curriculum
Emergency Medicine Residency

Curriculum Quick Facts
ED Rotations 24 blocks
Critical Care 6 blocks
Peds Experience 5 blocks

More than half of the residency curriculum occurs directly in the Emergency Department(ED) and its associated rotations. Our premise is that residents require multiple patient encounters in a high-volume setting to become strong clinicians, able to work in any emergency facility upon graduation.

Our curriculum is heavily weighted towards critical care. A relatively large percentage of our institution’s initial critical care occurs in the ED and residents experience multiple off-service rotations in critical care. As a result, our residents are highly proficient with critically ill patients and critical procedures.

Rotation Schedule

Our academic schedule is divided into three 13-block sections:

EM-1
ED Orientation 1 block
Adult Emergency Department 4 blocks
Pediatric Emergency Department 1 block
Coronary Care Unit 0.75 block
EMS 0.25 block
Intro to Resuscitation 1 block
Medical Intensive Care Unit 1 block
Obstetrics and Gynecology 1 block
Pediatric Intensive Care Unit 1 block
Trauma 1 block
ED Orthopedics 1 block
EM-2
Adult and Pediatric Emergency Department 9 blocks
Resuscitation 1 block
Medical Intensive Care Unit 1 block
Ultrasound 1 block
Toxicology 1 block
EM-3
Adult and Pediatric Emergency Department 9 blocks
Community EM 2 blocks
Elective 1 block
Surgical Intensive Care Unit 1 block

Rotation Descriptions

ED Orientation

EM first-years are introduced to the emergency department with a combination of didactics, simulation training, ultrasound basics and a limited number of clinical shifts.

Emergency Department (Adult)

All blocks in the adult ED are at UF Health Jacksonville, which has an annual patient volume of over 95,000. The ED is separated into four areas according to level of acuity – Emergency Critical Care (ECC), FlexCare, the Clinical Decision Unit (CDU) and Resuscitation.

  • The ECC area is used to treat all high-acuity emergent illnesses; it is attached to our medical and trauma resuscitation areas.
  • The FlexCare area is utilized to treat low and moderate acuity illnesses and is designed to “flex” up to see some higher acuity during periods of increased patient volume.
  • The CDU allows for workup of low-risk chest pain and observation patients and also allows for fast-track patient workups as space and volume permits.
  • The Resuscitation area provides service to the highest acuity medical patients in the ED and supports all trauma evaluations that present to our Level I trauma center.

UF Health Jacksonville has a very high acuity of patients, with more than 30% average hospital admission rate and an estimated 4-5% ICU admission rate. Second-year residents begin their administrative role in managing FlexCare, instilling leadership skills early during residency training. Third-year residents manage the entire department with the supervision of attendings.

Pediatric Emergency Department

Our pediatric ED sees approximately 20,000 patients per year staffed by board-certified pediatric emergency physicians, board-certified emergency physicians, pediatric emergency medicine fellows and EM and pediatric residents. Residents have a dedicated pediatric ED block during their first year. In the second and third year, residents have a longitudinal experience, with three to four shifts every block in the pediatric ED.

Coronary Care Unit (CCU)

The resident works as part of the cardiology team. Residents experience strong exposure to the medical and interventional management of acute coronary syndrome, arrhythmia, decompensated heart failure and other cardiovascular diseases.

Medical Intensive Care Unit (MICU)

Every block, a junior and senior emergency medicine (EM) resident team works alongside internal medicine residents, pulmonary critical care fellows and board-certified intensivists in the MICU. With the diverse pathology that presents and the tremendously high acuity of our ICU patients, it is highly regarded as one of the best rotations in this residency.

Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU)

First-year residents spend a block at Wolfson Children’s Hospital in Jacksonville working with pediatric critical care specialists. This affords the opportunity to care for children with severe cardiac, pulmonary and metabolic disease.

Resuscitation

The EM1 and EM2 resident will participate in the resuscitation of critically ill adult medical and trauma patients and will learn via direct patient contact, didactics and simulation exercises.

Obstetrics/Gynecology

As part of the labor and deliver team, the resident assists in deliveries and hones skills with transvaginal ultrasound at labor and delivery (L&D) triage.

ED Orthopedics

EM first year residents respond to all emergency orthopedic patients at UF Health Jacksonville and participate in an intensive emergency orthopedics curriculum designed to prepare them for the variety of orthopedic injuries encountered in emergency medicine.

Trauma Surgery/SICU

As Jacksonville’s only Level I trauma center, there are more than 2,000 trauma team activations yearly. Residents acquire trauma center exposure and experience in all three years. As first-year residents, they work as part of the trauma team on the wards. Second-year residents run trauma codes during the resuscitation block. Third-year residents split time in the trauma center and the surgical ICU.

Ultrasound

EM residents receive dedicated POCUS training in all three years of training focusing on higher-level ultrasound topics to build confidence in ultrasound skills as training progresses.

Toxicology

Residents field toxicology consults in the hospital with pharmacology and emergency trained toxicologists and answer calls in the regional poison center that serves over 6 million people.

Senior Elective

Ultrasound, international rotations and medical education are among a few of the elective options available for senior residents. With enough preplanning, a number of possibilities exist. Also, a career-track selective block has been created to allow the senior resident the opportunity to focus training on clinical, administrative, teaching or research interests.


Research

With multiple grant awards, our research division provides residents the opportunity to explore their scholarly interests. The University of Florida College of Medicine – Jacksonville encourages resident/fellow research through the availability of Dean’s Fund Research Awards and an annual Research Day, with residents and fellows from all disciplines presenting their work.

Well-designed studies conducted in collaboration with the faculty have resulted in residents and fellows presenting their research at regional, national and international meetings. Funding is made available for these presentations and residents are strongly encouraged to publish the results of their scientific projects.

For additional research information, please visit Emergency Medicine Research.