Emergency medicine in Egypt: Current situation and future prospects

Abstract

Introduction Emergency medicine is in the early development phase in Egypt. It was first registered in 2001 and although there are about 250 physicians finished their training in the specialty, less than 20 still work in Egypt and others moved to work through the world, mainly to Arab Gulf region. There is not a specialty society in emergency medicine, although there is an Egyptian Society of Intensive Care Medicine and Trauma (ESICT) with an interest in emergency medicine. Emergency care The Emergency Medical Services Department of the Ministry of Health (MOH) is involved in the pre-hospital aspects of emergency medicine. Over the past three years, the MOH has acquired approximately 1200 new full equipped ambulances greatly expanding its pre-hospital capabilities and response. This service provider through basic life support practitioners. In the meantime, personnel within the MOH continue to provide Hospital Emergency departments through the country with new equipment and episodic short training programs for staff in the care of trauma patients and cardiac life support. Emergency medicine training programs The Egyptian specialty board is a 4year formal training program is considered the leader institute in emergency medicine training in Egypt which started early of 2001 with more than 200 graduates until now. The most disadvantage of the program is lacking of specialist trainers and it mainly depends on skilled personnel from other specialities in each hospital, most of them are unaware of the specialty curriculum and updated guidelines in Emergency medicine. There are three university hospitals give academic master degree in Emergency medicine but they are away behind the basic training requirements although they have good approved curriculum did not come to real practice yet. The future Although Egypt was one of the first countries outside USA which considered Emergency medicine as specialty, immigration of trained Emergency physicians, leaving the positions for unqualified personnel from other specialities and lacking of resources had affected the specialty badly. For Emergency to move forward, we should depend on specialists to build the emergency society with annual international conference and local policies and guidelines and outreach programs to rural and borders regions.