Doctors in emergency medicine carry out the immediate assessment and treatment of patients with serious and life-threatening illnesses and injuries.
Training usually starts with a five year first degree in medicine. Then there's two years foundation doctor training, three years core training (CT1 – CT3), followed by three years specialists training (ST4 – ST6). This period of training will include your royal college exams. Run-through training from CT1/ST1-ST6 is also available and most trainees now choose that route. Length of training can vary according to your circumstances.
Doctors may work up to 48 hours a week. The working hours may sometimes extend beyond the normal working day to include early mornings, evenings, weekends and on call. The basic salary ranges from £29,384 to £34,012. Once you start your specialty training as an emergency medicine doctor employed by the NHS, you can expect to earn a salary of at least £40,257, which can increase to between £84,559 and £114,003 as a consultant.
You'll need excellent communication skills to manage a wide range of relationships with colleagues, and patients and their families. You'll be emotionally resilient, have excellent problem-solving and diagnostic skills and work well in teams and under pressure. You'll also be very organised for the benefit of patients.
In 2020 there were 863 applications for 348 emergency medicine specialty training posts. You could specialise and conduct research in areas such as paediatric emergency medicine and pre-hospital emergency medicine, study for a joint qualification with intensive care medicine, or teach medical or postgraduate students.