About Emergency Medicine

Thank you for taking a look at what SIU Emergency Medicine has to offer. Our mission is to develop great emergency physicians. We accomplish this mission through a robust clinical experience and educational innovation.

With a combined volume of over 130,000 ED visits in the last year our residents are exposed to a large breadth of the critically ill and injured. Patient encounters are focused towards high acuity presentations.

As a group we continually strive to advance the way we teach Emergency Medicine.

Our residents:

Use the Foundations of Emergency Medicine in our didactic curriculum.
Learn weekly in our small group curriculum consisting of simulation, procedure labs, and small group lecture sessions.
Are not only active learners but also serve as educators during our year directed curriculum, and teach clinically while supervising medical students.

We recognize that today the role of the emergency physician extends far beyond the bedside in the ED. Our goal is to prepare residents for all aspects of the future of EM and help them achieve any personal career goals they may have. We have recurring activities alongside local fire and EMS agencies to expose ourselves to the experiences that our patients and first responders have before they arrive in the ED. Faculty and residents are actively involved in several patient safety and quality improvement projects in conjunction with our hospital partners. These projects have provided an enjoyable way for residents to become more comfortable with the workings of hospital administration and research.

Our mission is to provide high-quality, compassionate emergency care by inspiring and training future emergency physicians and healthcare partners.

We do this by:

Training compassionate emergency physicians
Developing skilled educators
Preparing the leaders of tomorrow

What’s the impact of our graduates?

About 30% stay in central Illinois; the rest are practicing in diverse urban, community and rural environments across the country.
Many of our graduates hold leadership positions as medical directors, residency program directors, assistant program directors, and clerkship directors.

Our environment:

Our unique, community-based medical school partnership with two large Level I trauma centers provides a robust patient population to train our medical students and residents.
The Memorial Center for Learning & Innovation (MCLI) combines the latest technology in simulation, surgical skills, and didactic learning to help our residents train smarter.

Faculty recruiting:

As we look to the future, we know that our department will continue to have a great impact on emergency medicine across our region and beyond.
We are actively recruiting for additional faculty expertise in Pediatric Emergency Medicine, Emergency Medical Services, and Ultrasound.
It’s a great time to become part of the SIUEM team!

As a group we continually strive to advance the way we teach Emergency Medicine.

Our residents:

Use the Foundations of Emergency Medicine in our didactic curriculum.
Learn weekly in our small group curriculum consisting of simulation, procedure labs, and small group lecture sessions.
Are not only active learners but also serve as educators during our year directed curriculum, and teach clinically while supervising medical students.

SIUEM is continually looking to the future to advance emergency care in central and southern Illinois. Our residents and training program are at the heart of this goal. As we look toward 10 years of training residents, our program has produced many successful clinicians and leaders in Emergency Medicine. It really is amazing to think about the number of people our residents and graduates have cared for, and it was all possible because they chose to be a part of SIUEM. We are very excited for the upcoming recruitment season and hope you will consider SIU as the program to help you become a great emergency physician.

Christopher McDowell, MD
Associate Professor and Chair
Department of Emergency Medicine