Message from the MCW Emergency Medicine Chiefs

Congratulations on choosing a career in Emergency Medicine! This specialty will provide you with novel clinical challenges, a range of interesting pathologies, and rewarding, fast-paced shifts. Importantly, a career in Emergency Medicine gives you plenty of time for a life outside of medicine.

To achieve this, you need a residency program that is academically strong, clinically diverse, and personally supportive. As you are considering a program to call home for the next three to four years, we want to share with you what makes the Medical College of Wisconsin a great destination for Emergency Medicine training.

Below we've compiled the top 10 reasons to train here in Milwaukee. But if this does not convince you, you can learn more about our program on Instagram at @mcwemergencymedicine! We look forward to meeting you!

#10 – Diverse Patient Population

Froedtert Hospital and Children's Wisconsin Hospital see a combined volume of more than 130,000 patients per year. Both are quaternary care centers that serve as major referral centers for patients across the country. The hospitals are located in Wauwatosa, a nearby suburb of Milwaukee, drawing patients from the city as well as surrounding areas. Additionally, our institution was previously the "county hospital" for Milwaukee County, so we care for a large underserved population. Our adult Emergency Department sees many sick patients, with a 30% admission rate. Additionally, our residents obtain community experience at the Clement J. Zablocki VA Medical Center and Froedtert Menomonee Falls Hospital.

#9 – Research Opportunities

Our department is involved in nationally funded research and is part of three major research networks including ROC, NETT, and PECARN. The Medical College of Wisconsin and Children's Wisconsin Hospital boast numerous NIH-funded projects. Our Emergency Department faculty are leaders in the field of cardiac arrest, disaster medicine, toxicology, and pediatric trauma. The opportunities for resident scholarly research are limitless. Our residents complete their required research projects ranging from poster presentations, published papers, and presentations at national conferences.

#8 –Nationally Recognized EMS

Milwaukee's EMS system is consistently rated as one of the best in the nation thanks to ground-breaking research by our Emergency Medicine faculty sub-specialized in EMS along with our EMS fellowship. As PGY-2s and PGY-3s, we serve as medical control for Milwaukee County EMS while on shift at Froedtert Hospital. These “Base Calls” are a way for residents to assist with medical decision-making with out-of-hospital cardiac arrests as well as other out-of-hospital clinical scenarios. It is a fantastic opportunity for us to help make us experts in ACLS and pre-hospital medicine. We also offer an opportunity to be a full crew member and flight physician with “Flight For Life,” our regional air medical transport service. We also have a yearly EMS curriculum where we assist our EMS division with QI, run by the EMS fellow.

#7 – Strong Academic Foundation

Founded in 1978 we are one of the original Emergency Medicine residency programs and our program has 99% Emergency Medicine written boards pass rate thanks to our rigorous education curriculum, which includes:

• Orientation Month – Interns are brought up to speed during their first month. This month includes procedure workshops, EMS ride-alongs, learning work-ups of common ED complaints, clinical shifts, and settling into our program and the great city of Milwaukee. It is also centered around allowing interns to get to know each other and others in the program.
• Department Conference – Each week we have five hours of high-quality, high-yield core Emergency Medicine content. These include adult and pediatric simulations, guest lecturers, panel discussions, small group discussions, and oral boards practice. There are several rotating didactic curriculums in the areas of trauma, critical care, pediatrics, wellness, US, palliative care, research, and patient safety to provide residents with both a diverse and comprehensive residency education.
• Board Review Curriculum – We use Emergency Medicine Foundations, a longitudinal reading curriculum along with a subscription to EM Coach, an online board review question bank that also has short video lectures and online “textbook chapters”. These provide exposure to both bread-and-butter Emergency Medicine as well as rare pathology to provide a solid knowledge base for both clinical practice and the written board exam.
• Mock Oral Boards – Oral boards are simulated on an annual basis, as well as frequently in our Department Conference. Frequent exposure to doing cases and watching your peers do cases ensures confidence when it comes time to become board-certified in Emergency Medicine.
• Journal Club – We have a quarterly journal club facilitated by two residents which is held at a faculty member's house.

#6 – Robust Ultrasound Curriculum

We have a comprehensive ultrasound curriculum that involves a two-week ultrasound rotation as a PGY-1 and another two-week rotation as a PGY-3. These shifts involve scanning shifts with the ultrasound faculty and the ultrasound fellow at MCW EM. Our ultrasound division has eight ultrasound faculty who are trained in ultrasound, sports medicine, and critical care fellowships. There are multiple ultrasound faculty who are TEE-trained and will incorporate this with cardiac resuscitation in the Froedtert Hospital ED. We have four sonosites at Froedtert Hospital and ultrasound machines at the Zablocki VA, Children’s, and Froedtert Menomonee Falls.

#5 – Exceptional Toxicology Experience

We have a strong toxicology foundation provided to us by our six toxicology fellowship-trained EM faculty and two toxicology trained EM pharmacists, as well as a toxicology fellowship. We spend a month rotating at the Wisconsin Poison Center which is located within Children's Wisconsin. During this rotation, residents are on-call for the Poison Center, learn about various toxidromes, and round on patients admitted to Children’s Wisconsin and Froedtert Hospital for toxic ingestions. As residents, we have toxicology lecture series incorporated into our conference curriculum.

#4 – Resident Scholarly Track Opportunities

Our program responds to feedback by adjusting to the needs of residents, including our scholarly track program. Halfway through intern year, there is an opportunity to join a subspecialty track. Tracks are voluntary and require a couple of hours per month of extra work focusing on each subspecialty, which can include, but is not limited to, creating simulations, attending lectures, developing lectures for conference, attending meetings, and performing research. Our current tracks include medical education, operations, critical care, EMS/Flight, ultrasound, toxicology, wilderness medicine, social EM, and sports medicine. However, there is the opportunity to develop a new track with faculty that has a similar subspecialty interest in EM.

#3 – Children's Wisconsin

Our residents rotate at Children's Wisconsin, which is consistently ranked as one of the best Children's hospitals in the nation. The acuity is high and attendings are experts in their field. Our interns spend a month in the PICU and Pediatric emergency department. In 2023, a brand new, larger pediatric emergency department was opened to help facilitate seeing larger volumes of patients. Our pediatric emergency medicine experience is longitudinal, consisting of 1-2 shifts each month, as a PGY-2 and PGY-3. With over 75,000 annual ED visits, our residents go into practice with a strong foundation in Pediatric Emergency Medicine.

#2 – Level 1 Trauma

We staff Froedtert Hospital and Children's Wisconsin, the only Level 1 trauma centers in SE Wisconsin serving over 2 million people. At Froedtert Hospital, our residents run (“Captain”) the traumas during their PGY-2 and PGY-3 years, alternating weekly with the trauma senior for captain vs primary/secondary survey. We are also airway for every trauma activation, with a dedicated senior resident responsible during the day. Our interns spend a month rotation on the trauma service and our PGY-2s spend a month in the Surgical ICU, taking care of trauma throughout their entire hospital encounter. We have a great relationship with our trauma surgeons, some of whom wrote the book on ATLS (literally).

#1 – The BEST People, the BEST Place

The number one asset of our program is the people behind it. Our attendings are truly all amazing teachers and treat us like colleagues from day one. Our nurses, advanced practice providers, and EM-trained pharmacists are top-notch. We guarantee you won't find a more caring and supportive staff anywhere in the country. When graduation nears, we have an expansive network of our graduates all over the country which makes landing your dream job easier, even in some of the most competitive markets.

Milwaukee is a fantastic place to live, with a growing, evolving downtown, an up-and-coming arts scene, one of the largest music festivals in the world (Summerfest), nationally renowned parks, miles of beautiful beaches on Lake Michigan, and professional sports teams (Brewers, Bucks, and the Packers up in Green Bay). Best of all, it has very little traffic, a great cost of living, diverse nightlife, and great bike trails. The Medical College of Wisconsin has one of the most generous stipends of any residency in the country, which, combined with a low cost of living, gives great flexibility with your finances.