Information for prospective trainees
There are two routes to be coming a PEM physician, ‘The ED route’ or ‘The Paediatric route’.
Both end at the same destination – becoming recognized as a PEM specialist – but each route offers different opportunities and unless you plan to do dual fellowship, it is worth considering where and how you want to spend your time when you become a specialist before you sign up.
For some this is fairly straightforward. For example, those choosing ‘The Paediatric route’ have the option to specialise in PEM and General Paediatrics. So, if you wish to spend some of your time seeing children in a ward or clinic setting then this would be the way to go. Alternatively, if you wish to only work in an ED setting and also manage adult patients then ‘The ED route’ is the most efficient path.
For those wishing to work only in PEM it is a little more challenging. As a general rule (although this does vary from hospital to hospital), if you want to work in a mixed emergency department then you need to go down ‘the ED route’ or obtain dual fellowship.
Both end at the same destination – becoming recognized as a PEM specialist – but each route offers different opportunities and unless you plan to do dual fellowship, it is worth considering where and how you want to spend your time when you become a specialist before you sign up.
For some this is fairly straightforward. For example, those choosing ‘The Paediatric route’ have the option to specialise in PEM and General Paediatrics. So, if you wish to spend some of your time seeing children in a ward or clinic setting then this would be the way to go. Alternatively, if you wish to only work in an ED setting and also manage adult patients then ‘The ED route’ is the most efficient path.
For those wishing to work only in PEM it is a little more challenging. As a general rule (although this does vary from hospital to hospital), if you want to work in a mixed emergency department then you need to go down ‘the ED route’ or obtain dual fellowship.