Residency & Fellowship Training
“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.”—George Bernard Shaw
International Emergency Medicine at Jefferson
At Jefferson we believe that optimal healthcare is not delivered by just one professional, one specialty or one discipline. We offer patients a team-based approach to care that includes physicians from a variety of specialties, a team of nurses, pharmacists and other health care professionals. With Global Health, we in Jefferson’s Dept. of Emergency Medicine, hope to take this same team approach globally.
We believe that it is impossible to develop and grow the specialty of emergency medicine if the remainder of the healthcare system does not develop. We also believe that improving healthcare globally begins in one’s own backyard. Therefore, our focus is not just emergency medicine and not just international work, but global health…hence the name of the fellowship.
The Global Health Fellowship at Jefferson Emergency Medicine is designed to provide the fellow with a comprehensive education and experience in global health development. With a focus on an inter-disciplinary and systems-based approach to healthcare development that includes consideration of economic, political, cultural and social issues, the fellow will complete the program with a broad set of skills that can be used in the future to work at a micro or macro level.
The two-year curriculum for the fellowship offers a combination of required and optional activities.
Required Activities:
- Masters in Public Health through the Jefferson School of Population Health (most classes are 5pm and later, with some online courses too)
- 3-month international block/year
- International Field Site
- Hands-on work with local health authorities, local and global non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and local/national healthcare training facilities at the field site
- Clinical work in the Emergency Department at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and Methodist Hospital (18 hours/week averaged over each year)
- Supervision and teaching of emergency medicine residents
- Grand Rounds and other presentations on global health issues, within and outside the department
- Participation in university-wide global health efforts, including development of a university-wide global-health curriculum
- Participation in one international conference/year
- Monthly didactic sessions with fellowship directors
International Emergency Medicine at Christiana
Interest in international emergency medicine work is substantial and growing among emergency physicians in the United States and other countries. This interest in and need for IEM has been fueled by population growth, rapid urbanization and economic growth of many developing countries. As a result, there has been an increase in the demand for emergency-medicine services abroad and more emergency physicians working in international relief and development.
As a leader in emergency-medicine education and training, Christiana Care has launched the International Emergency Medicine Fellowship in response to the growing interest of EM physicians in this area.
International emergency medicine fellowship training for residency graduates provides opportunities for gaining knowledge and skills valuable to emergency physicians interested in pursuing careers in international health. Fellowship is an ideal approach to training in IEM, because it allows for the combination of education, clinical practice and hands-on experience needed to work in developing countries and health systems. Adequate fellowship training requires significant time to travel, obtain advanced education in public health, conduct research and continue to work and develop clinically
in the home ED.
The Christiana Care IEM fellowship involves working in Christiana Care’s home emergency departments as an attending physician, both clinically and in the role of academic faculty teaching our highly regarded EM, EM/IM and EM/FM residents, as well as working abroad on international projects including research, clinical, policy and
teaching. There is also the option of obtaining a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree from a partner university.