This 4-year joint program harnesses the horsepower of 2 academic medical centers, and residents have access to double the faculty members.
The Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Massachusetts General Hospital Harvard Affiliated Emergency Medicine Residency (BWH/MGH HAEMR) is a 4-year joint training program sponsored by both hospitals. “One major advantage of our joint program is that it allows us to harness the horsepower of 2 large academic faculties of emergency medicine which together cover the entire field across a broad spectrum of academic interests, which gives our residents unparalleled depth and breadth of opportunities to engage with faculty,” said David Brown, MD, Emergency Medicine chief. Each institution has approximately 60 faculty, doubling residents’ access. It also gives residents a chance to work with 2 different patient populations in the Emergency Department (ED): Mass General sees about 112,000 patients a year, including children, and more trauma volume. BWH sees about 65,000 and has a larger oncology volume because of the Dana-Farber Cancer Center.
“It’s important for trainees to see how 2 similar, strong academic medical centers approach patient care, and to see different subtleties in clinical pathways and patients. It helps them understand that there are practice variations as they develop their own high-level clinical practice,” said Eric Nadel, MD, BWH/MGH HAEMR program director.
“The 3 benefits to the residency are: experiencing clinical practice variation; access to world-renowned faculty members with specific interests and skill sets; and being able to leverage the opportunities and resources within each of the hospitals such as the Brigham Innovation Hub and the Mass General Healthcare Transformation Lab,” said Alister Martin, MD, former HAEMR chief resident and new Mass General faculty member.
“The opportunity to care for medically complicated patients at both institutions is extraordinary,” said Emily Cleveland, MD, MPH, HAEMR chief resident. “Being a part of the ED at Brigham and Women’s affords a unique opportunity to care for many Dana Farber Patients. Also, the organization of the ED at Mass General is very different in large part because they triage by how sick the patients are. The 2 institutions are complimentary and give you a balanced but unique look at how academic emergency medicine is practiced.”
Nadel added that more than providing opportunities to residents to gain skills and become wonderful physicians, the dual program can help them aspire to also learn to use their doctor voice to change the world. “For example,” Nadel said, “After I worked clinically with one of my residents, he went home at midnight and got on a plane to Australia, where he is going to teach about opioid use disorder at a conference and describe the suboxone program that has been initiated at Mass General with our residents and faculty.”
[i] Eric Nadel, MD, (617) 732-8079.