Prospective Doctors
Integrated EM/Urgent care aims to bring the best of both Urgent Care and Emergency Medicine to the community level. There are roles for both Emergency Specialists and Urgent Care doctors in this setting. Everyone has something to teach to the students, nurses, other health care providers and other doctors. This is to be a collegial atmosphere with everyone bringing their ‘A’ game each day.
Job duties include direct patient care, supervision of educational activities with other learns (across a wide spectrum of learners), and interaction with ambulance staff accepting new patients and handing over patients going to the acute care centre (Middlemore Hospital initially). Operational duties will hope to maintain optimal patient flow and management of the sicker patients as they get their initial treatment and subsequent transfer. Wait times should be minimised and patients should be expedited as soon as possible.
Customer care is of the utmost importance, but not to the point of giving patients things they demand but have the potential to cause harm (i.e. antibiotics for URTI). Teaching and educational skill development will be important to allow collaboration and improve patient care overall with the ultimate goal being the improvement of the community’s health literacy (allowing them to self care for themselves).
This will be an open environment emphasising collaboration and collegiality. Everyone will have something to bring each day and all opinions will be considered. Any ideas for improvement especially around diagnostic accuracy and improving the customer experience will be encouraged and examined to see if there are any problems worth implementing. Other educational efforts will include point-of-care ultrasound, fracture reduction just to name a few. This will be an environment you will have to see as it will be unlike any of your previous experiences. Overcome the apathy of your current work place and join a community of healthcare professionals working to provide the best care to their patients and trying to improve the overall health of wider population.