Graduate Medical Education
Austin Emergency Medicine

Welcome from the Program Director

Welcome to the UT Southwestern-Austin Emergency Medicine Residency. We are a brand new EM Program with 8 residents per class. We have received initial accreditation from the ACGME, starting in July, 2012. We are affiliated with University of Texas Southwestern, a medical school with national prominence as a leader in medical education and cutting edge research, Seton Family of Hospitals, a not-for-profit healthcare system serving an 11 county population of 1.8 million people, and Emergency Service Partners (ESP), a physician owned EM group.

Our training program is based primarily at the University Medical Center at Brackenridge (UMCB), a 75,000 visit ED urban Level One Trauma Center. This hospital is the referral center for all of central Texas, and the only adult level one trauma center within 60 miles. Brackenridge is the heart of our core values, acting as the safety net for the city's most sick and vulnerable patients. UMCB is a certified Stroke Center and Chest Pain Center, and specializes in treating injuries and illnesses of the Brain, Spine and Cardiovascular System. Balancing the curriculum are outstanding rotations at our affiliated sites. Dell Children's Medical Center is a 75,000 visit ED pediatric Level One Trauma Center, and Seton Medical Center-Austin is a 35,000 visit ED private community hospital, cancer center, stroke center and cardiac transplant center. Both Brackenridge and Seton Medical Center are named as Solucient 100 Top Hospitals, and are both winners of the Magnet Nursing Award, the American Nursing Association's top award. In the PGY 3 year, residents will learn to push their limits by spending one month in a rural ED at Seton Highland Lakes, a busy ED with no in-house subspecialist back up.

Teaching in Austin is second to none. Our experienced faculty have been teaching medical students, UTSW residents and visiting residents for years. In fact, the clinical experience and teaching is so top rate that the U.S. Military sends its Emergency Medicine residents to our sites to train. Our classroom curriculum features weekly didactics melding current clinical practice and evidence based medicine. We supplement that with monthly "class days," where each resident class receives its own small group learning tailor made for that level of training. PGY I year focuses on the "Approach to" lectures and skills labs, as well as ED Ultrasonography. PGY II year concentrates on Research Skills and Critical Care topics. And PGY III year spends the day learning about ED Administration and Career Planning. This is supplemented by time in our state of the art Simulation lab. One of the largest in the country, it is based in a former fully functioning hospital floor and operating suite that have been retrofitted to practice medicine with high fidelity simulators in a real hospital setting, including 8 ORs, an ED, an ICU, a cardiac cath lab and several hospital wards. The Clinical Education Center also has an on-site medical library and a computer lab.

We provide outstanding opportunities to learn about Research, EMS, ED Administration, and Public Health. Our research partners are Hospital Physicians for Clinical Research (HPCR), an NIH/NINDS designated "spoke" research center run by our own EM faculty, UT Southwestern, which has 4 Nobel laureates and currently has 3500 research projects in progress with 400 million dollars in support, and Seton Healthcare. Our EMS experience is hosted by the Austin City/Travis County EMS Systems, Austin City Police Department, Travis County Star Flight Aeromedical, Air Evac Texas and Jewitt EMS, and our own EM faculty serve as medical directors for several of these services. Our ED Administration curriculum is augmented by access to over 30 ED medical directors and the curriculum is modeled after ESP's "Leadership Academy." Finally, the state capitol is just blocks from the hospital, and is the site of our annual legislative day. It serves as a daily reminder of our commitment to our public health mission to the vulnerable and underserved as frontline healthcare providers.

Located in the Central Texas Hill Country, Austin is a great place to live and work. As the state capitol, Austin has rich politics and history. It is an outdoor mecca, with 11,800 acres of dedicated parks and greenbelt through downtown, including hiking and biking trails, boating on Ladybird Lake and Lake Travis, strolling through botanical gardens and swimming in natural springs. The economy is strong, based in the high tech industries and university centers. And it is considered the "live music capital of the world" with "South by Southwest" and "Austin City Limits" music festivals, as well as many local venues. Austin is listed in Kiplinger's "Top 10 Cities to Live, Work and Play," Outside Magazine's "America's Best Cities," and several other national top 10 lists, including Relocate America's "Overall Best Places to Move" and "Earth Friendly Location," CNN Money's "Best Big Cities," Prevention Magazines "Top Cities for Walking," and Readers Digest's "Cleanest Cities."

Thank you for visiting with us and taking the time to learn about our program. We are proud of what it has to offer. We hope you consider training with us.

Sincerely,

TODD BERGER, MD, FACEP
Associate Professor
Program Director
UT Southwestern
Austin Emergency Medicine Residency