Global Emergency Medicine Fellowships: Survey of Curricula and Pre-Fellowship Experiences

Lack of accreditation requirements affords global emergency medicine (GEM) fellowships the flexibility to customize curricula and content. A paucity of literature exists describing the state of GEM fellowship programs. We describe the current state of GEM fellowship curricula including which components are commonly included, and highlighting areas of higher variability.

We identified GEM fellowships and invited them to participate in a web-based survey. Descriptive statistical analysis was performed.

Of the 46 fellowship programs invited to participate, 24 responded; one duplicate response and one subspecialty program were excluded. The 22 remaining programs were included in the analysis. Nineteen programs (86%) offer a Masters in Public Health (MPH) and 36% require an MPH to graduate. Additionally, 13 programs (59%) offered graduate degrees other than MPH. Fellows average 61 clinical hours per month (95% confidence interval, 53-68). Time spent overseas varies widely, with the minimum required time ranging from 2-28 weeks (median 8 weeks; interquartile range [IQR] 6,16) over the course of the fellowship. The majority of programs offer courses in tropical medicine (range 2-24 weeks, median 4 weeks) and the Health Emergencies in Large Populations course. Only 32% of programs reported offering formal ultrasound training. Fellows averaged 1.3 research projects prior to fellowship and median of 2.5 during fellowship (IQR 1,3). While the majority of GEM fellowship graduates worked at US academic centers (59%), 24% worked in US community hospitals, 9% worked for non-profit organizations, and 9% worked internationally in clinical practice.

Our results highlight the wide variability of curricular content and experiences offered by GEM fellowships.