1st- and 2nd-year medical student exposure to emergency medicine

Medical societies in emergency medicine (EM) have recommended teaching EM topics in the preclinical years of medical school. However, the magnitude of integrating an EM curriculum into the 1st and 2nd year of medical school is unknown.

The purpose of this survey was to determine the extent and type of exposure to EM in the 1st and 2nd years of medical schools in the United States.

The deans of all allopathic and osteopathic medical schools in the country were surveyed by mail. The survey took the form of a questionnaire and had seven questions that included type of exposure, number of students, length of the exposure, learning objectives, lectures, laboratory, textbook, evaluation process and grades, departmental status, board certification, emergency department volume, and size of the medical school class. The data were analyzed with SPSS software.

The survey was returned by 84 of the 125 (67.2%) medical schools in the country. The average class size was 129.0 students. As many as 63.9% of the medical schools responding provided EM exposure in the 1st year and 54.3% in the 2nd year. The 1st-year exposure most frequently used more than one type of teaching activity (47.4%), observation (12.3%), cardiopulmonary resuscitation training (15.8%), universal precautions (7.0%), and other (17.5%). None taught physical diagnosis. The various teaching activities lasted anywhere from hours (27.5%), to days (25.3%) or weeks (52.5%), with a mean of 2.25 weeks. Second-year exposure most frequently included multiple activities (49.0%), observation (16.3%), or other activities (14.3%); a few taught physical diagnosis (8.2%), cardiopulmonary resuscitation training (6.1%), or universal precautions (6.1%). These teaching activities lasted from hours (20.6%), to days (14.7%) or weeks (64.7%), with a mean of 2.44 weeks.

Most U.S. medical schools provide EM exposure in the first 2 years of medical school, lasting slightly more than 2 weeks in length most frequently covering multiple topics.