At the February 15, 2013, meeting, the Residency Review Committee for Emergency Medicine accredited the UCSF/SFGH EM Fellowship in Emergency Medical Services. This will enable graduates of the program to be eligible to sit for the EMS Medicine board exam upon completion of their training at UCSF. Our current Fellow, Dr. Katie Tataris, will transition next year into the accredited Fellowship program and is expected to be our first graduate of this new track for EMS training.
EMS Medicine was recently certified as a subspecialty of Emergency Medicine by the American Board of Emergency Medicine in October 2012. The first board exams in this subspecialty will be given in October of 2013, with initial eligibility determined by length of EMS practice plus completion of non-accredited EMS Fellowship training programs if appropriate. Following a five-year transition period, only graduates of accredited training programs will be eligible to become board certified in this specialty. UCSF/SFGH has had an EMS/Disaster Medicine Fellowship training program based on the Society of Academic Emergency Medicine recommended curriculum for EMS medicine since 2009 and has graduated two Fellows: Evan Bloom, MD, currently working at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center Emergency Department and serving as Medical Director for Falck Ambulance, Northern California; and Mary Mercer, MD, UCSF/SFGH EMS Fellowship Program Associate Director/UCSF Clinical Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine, Attending Physician and Base Hospital Medical Director for SFGH. The EMS Fellowship program has two options: the one-year, ACGME accredited track with curriculum that includes field EMS practice and supervision in the San Francisco EMS system, air ambulance EMS with REACH air medical service in Northern California, disaster medicine projects with the Department of Public Health and the Veterans’ Administration, and clinical work at the SFGH Emergency Department/Level 1 trauma center and the San Francisco VA Medical Center, regional coordination center for disaster in the Bay Area. Options include work with the CA-6 Bay Area Disaster Medical Assistance Team, multiple mass gathering/special event medical coverage options, and training prehospital providers at numerous venues including City College of San Francisco and the San Francisco Paramedic Association. An optional second year of the Fellowship program is available for those candidates interested in and qualified for an advanced degree (MPH, MPA or MCR).
