Emergency medicine advances healthcare systems: the importance of recognizing EM as a specialty - Erak, M.; Khatib, N.; Collier, A.; Lim, R.; Lang, E.; Heymann, E. (Internal and Emergency Medicine, 2026)
Emergency Medicine (EM) is facing a global crisis. System demands and utilization are increasing, while resources are constrained, putting society’s healthcare safety net at risk. In order to approach this crisis, many areas of reform have been suggested (Heymann et al. in Intern Emerg Med, 2024). The first step is the recognition of EM as a specialty of its own. This will give Emergency Physicians (EPs) the potential to take control of their profession. Similar to other examples of bottom-up and horizontalization approaches (Laloux, F., & Wilber, K. (2014). Reinventing organizations: A guide to creating organizations inspired by the next stage of human consciousness.), empowering EPs to provide solutions to wellbeing and resilience issues can only occur if EPs are allowed to organize and control their training, activity, research, and field of action. Traditional models have seen EM as a subspecialty or a secondary degree completed after initial training in an already established profession (e.g., internal medicine). These models ultimately result in longer training pathways and risk trainee and trainer fatigue. Furthermore, in these models, the profession is directed by specialties who do not face the daily challenges of modern EM. The following paper discusses the advantages of recognizing EM as a specialty and how this benefits wellbeing and resilience. The result is that EM recognition protects a cornerstone of the healthcare system. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Società Italiana di Medicina Interna (SIMI) 2026.
Keywords: journalArticle; Burnout; Emergency medicine; Recognition; Speciality; Training; controlled study; diagnosis; emergency physician; fatigue; health care system; human; internal medicine; review