After years of planning, the UVM Medical Center launched its first-ever emergency medicine (EM) residency, welcoming six new doctors to the three-year program in June. What sets the UVM program apart from many others is its mix of tertiary and rural hospital experiential offerings, and its focus on independent clinical decision-making. “We want to teach our EM residents how to innovate and be leaders in the future,” said Associate Professor of Surgery Richard Bounds, M.D., who directs the program. 

 
UVM Medical Center serves as the academic hub for the residents, who also gain experience in rural communities at UVM Health Network-affiliated hospitals. In their first month, the new doctors have participated in simulation training, small group exercises, didactic sessions, physician assistant-led laceration repair, orthopedic management training, and shadowed emergency department (ED) nurses, techs, and pharmacists.
 
In addition to academic training with outstanding research and scholarship opportunities, the program has a heavy focus on training residents to provide emergency care in a resource-limited environment through advanced training and leadership opportunities in global health, rural emergency medicine, wilderness medicine, and point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS). Because residents see a high level of acuity in the ED, the curriculum exposes them to multiple ICU settings so they can see the “other side” of the ED, in addition to preparing them for potential critical care fellowships, which are growing in popularity.
 
UVM is the first in the U.S. to equip each EM resident with their own hand-held ultrasound technology, which can be used anywhere, and allows for quick decision-making. The ultrasound probe plugs into an iPhone and uploads images to a cloud for image review, teaching, and quality assurance.

UVM’s first class of EM residents are: Nick Alsofrom, M.D., who's from Burlington, Vt. and received his medical degree from Boston University School of Medicine; Aaron Blau, M.D., of Fort Collins, Colo., who’s a graduate of Tufts University School of Medicine; Michael Carson, M.D., from Anchorage, Alaska, a graduate of the University of Washington School of Medicine; Madison Daly, M.D., who hails from Saratoga Springs, N.Y., and received her medical degree from the Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell; Noah Rohrer, M.D., of Cambridge, Mass., a graduate of the University of Massachusetts Medical School; and Chance Sullivan, M.D., who’s from Winterset, Iowa, and received his medical degree from the Carver College of Medicine at the University of of Iowa.