Welcome to the University of Texas at Southwestern residency at Parkland Memorial Hospital. As the 2009-2010 EM chief residents, we would like to introduce you to our program and highlight the reasons that it is quickly becoming one of the premiere EM residency programs in the country.

“Did you hear?” We have implemented a number of exciting changes over the last year or so, including a significant increase in attending and nursing coverage in the Parkland ED, along with overlapping shift structures, a complete overhaul of Parkland ED patient flow, incorporation of asynchronous learning into the curriculum, growth of the residency, our new website (www.dallasem.org), and much more. It is a truly a new beginning at the UTSW EM residency.

Parkland Hospital is the major adult teaching facility at UT Southwestern. Parkland has been serving Dallas and its surrounding region for more than 100 years. Frequently ranked among the best 25 hospitals in the nation, Parkland is licensed for 997 beds and is one the area's top employers, with over 6,000 employees.
Parkland's ED has 79 bed spaces, including 24 fully monitored critical care beds, with a volume of over 90,000 patients a year. Unique features include a six-person asthma treatment room with a full-time respiratory therapist, an eye/ENT room with slit lamp, a four-person conscious sedation orthopedic room equipped with C-arm fluoroscopy, and eight negative pressure ventilation (isolation) rooms. 

Emergency Medicine faculty and residents provide medical direction and 24-hour medical coordination for Dallas EMS (and most of its suburbs) and medical coordination for disaster management. Parkland houses the North Texas Poison Center under the medical direction of Emergency Medicine faculty. We are a level 1 Trauma Center where the Emergency Medicine and Trauma Surgery residents resuscitate critically injured trauma patients side by side.

The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center ranks among the top academic medical centers in the world. Being such, the experience gained while doing off-service rotations is extremely valuable. Virtually every specialty and subspecialty is on-call for the ED 24 hours/day. Parkland is a leader in programs such as: Internal Medicine, Cardiology, Obstetrics/Gynecology, Burns, Surgery and many other subspecialty services. 
Oh, by the way, we’re in the early stages of designing and building a new hospital with great support from the community - with an ED that we will plan and will truly be unlike any ever built.

Our sister campus at Children’s Medical Center of Dallas, connected to Parkland by the two adjacent Emergency Departments, is the major pediatric teaching facility in the system and first pediatric hospital in Texas designated as a Level I Trauma Center. It is a private 322-bed hospital with roots dating back 80 years.  Children's provides advanced medical care for children from birth through age 18 and is ranked one of the nation's best pediatric hospitals. The Emergency Department at CMCD is the highest volume pediatric emergency treatment facility in the nation, also triaging over 90,000 patients.

Our faculty is an impressive compilation of Emergency Medicine physicians from many different backgrounds. We have national leaders in the field of EMS, Resuscitation, Toxicology, Practice Management and Tactical Medicine. We also have the current ACEP president Dr Angela Gardner and ACEP past- president Dr Robert Suter who recently received the John G. Wiegenstein Leadership Award.

We currently have five  fellowship programs: Toxicology, Pediatric EM, EMS, Government Emergency Medicine Security Services (GEMSS), and Practice Management/Health Policy.  We also have an Ultrasound fellowship that is in the early stages of development, as well as an EM-to-Critical Care fellowship track.
We have exceptional research and scholarly activity experiences. Parkland is one of only 7 designated Resuscitation Centers by the NIH and one of our faculty, Dr Ahamed Idris, is a leader in the Resuscitation Outcomes Consortium Registry.  Currently there are several studies underway for improving cardio-pulmonary resuscitation including therapeutic hypothermia, the use of impedance threshold valve, the novel uses of hormones as neuroprotectants after traumatic brain injury and many more.  Additionally, this year the Chiefs have challenged mixed teams of residents to investigate scholarly questions and present abstracts at the Texas College of Emergency Medicine (TCEP) conference in the spring.

We have awesome international EM experiences. In the senior year, we offer a two-month international elective in Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand. Travel expenses, housing and a car in New Zealand is generously funded through the residency. Residents have also participated in medical Spanish immersion programs in Central America.  Our faculty is motivated to enhance these experiences and is working on several more opportunities for international exposure.

As a resident here, you will be well-trained, well-respected, and highly sought after for employment after graduation. Potential employers know that the graduates are highly capable of handling a complex patient base, are comfortable with critical care and procedures, have extensive experience with pediatric patients, and are used to working in busy and hectic environments. For those residents seeking additional training in fellowships or desiring to work in academic Emergency Medicine, our graduates are very competitive.

As Sir William Osler so eloquently stated, "Medicine is learned by the bedside and not in the classroom. . .”

The residency at Parkland allows us to do just that. We have an amazing group of residents, faculty and administrative staff who make the process of becoming an exceptional Emergency Medicine physician exciting, challenging and extremely rewarding. We are inspired by the opportunities and potential for growth and vow to leave the residency a legacy of constantly striving for greatness in all we do. We invite you to join us in our journey.

Thank you for your interest in our program. Please also check out our Frequently Asked Questions section and feel free to contact us with any further questions.
 

Sincerely, Ralph Baine Bradford Commons Matthew Muller Ryan Parker