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The Effect of Emergency Department Crowding on Education: Blessing or Curse? |
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| Authors: | Philip Shayne MD Michelle Lin MD Jacob W. Ufberg MD Felix Ankel MD Kelly Barringer MD Sarah Morgan-Edwards MD Nicole DeIorio MD Brent Asplin MPH MD |
| Affiliation: | From the Department of Emergency Medicine, Emory University (PS), Atlanta, GA;the Department of Emergency Medicine, University of California San Francisco and San Francisco General Hospital (ML), San Francisco, CA;the Department of Emergency Medicine, Temple University (JWU), Philadelphia, PA;the Department of Emergency Medicine, Regions Hospital (FA, KB, BA), St. Paul, MN;the Department of Emergency Medicine, University of New Mexico (SME), Albuquerque, NM;and the Department of Emergency Medicine, Oregon Health and Science University (ND), Portland, OR. |
| Abstract: | Emergency department (ED) crowding is a national crisis that contributes to medical error and system inefficiencies. There is a natural concern that crowding may also adversely affect undergraduate and graduate emergency medicine (EM) education. ED crowding stems from a myriad of factors, and individually these factors can present both challenges and opportunities for education. Review of the medical literature demonstrates a small body of evidence that education can flourish in difficult clinical environments where faculty have a high clinical load and to date does not support a direct deleterious effect of crowding on education. To provide a theoretical framework for discussing the impact of crowding on education, the authors present a conceptual model of the effect of ED crowding on education and review possible positive and negative effects on each of the six recognized Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) core competencies. |
| Keywords: | emergency medicine emergency department crowding education |