Emergency medicine is an intimidating discipline for many medical and nursing students. It not only demands a mastery of medical principles but also requires that students be able to apply them almost reflexively. For many, the days of careful and calm reflection on a clinical vignette over a cup of coffee can seem like a very distant memory.
Because of the unique stressors, emergency medicine rewards individual approaches to medical application. Pattern recognition, immediate action, and confidence are all things that emergency medical practitioners need to be successful in this field. Unfortunately, many of these traits are not emphasized in traditional medical curricula, and some students take many months before discovering the need to develop them on their own.
