Specialist Physicians’ Attitude towards Emergency Medicine; a Semi-Structured Qualitative Study

Introduction: The present study is a survey to assess the pros and cons of emergency medicine (EM) from the viewpoint of the scholars from other medicine disciplines to improve the efficiency of EM in the healthcare system.  Methods: This is a semi-structured qualitative study. Face-to-face interviews with various physicians with different specialties were performed to gather information on their viewpoints. Study population was selected mainly based on their history of collaboration with emergency medicine specialists in several educational hospitals in Tehran, Iran. All interviews were recorded and then transcribed to paper. Data were mainly categorized and reported into four themes: 1) general aspects of emergency medicine, goals and policies 2) Management of emergency department 3) Educational aspects 4) therapeutic aspects.  Results: 22 specialist physicians with the mean age of 47.3±7.6 years were studied (77.3% male). The average of their work experience as a specialist was 13.6±7.5 years. From the viewpoint of other experts, the establishment of EM and training of EM specialists is accompanied with relative disadvantages and advantages regarding goals and policies, patient management, therapeutic interventions and student education in the emergency department. Initiating resuscitation and maintaining hemodynamic stability and appropriate triage of the patients can add to the benefits of EM by preventing unreasonable hospitalization, and reducing the workload and difficulty of the work of other professionals working in the hospital.  Conclusions: Based on the results of the current study, it seems that most Iranian specialist physicians have a positive attitude towards emergency medicine and think that emergency medicine could have beneficial effects for the health system and hospital management system.