History of the development of international emergency medicine

Kumar Alagappan; C. James Holliman

doi:10.1016/j.emc.2004.09.013

History of the development of international emergency medicine

Kumar Alagappan, C. James Holliman

Research output: Contribution to journal › Review article › peer-review

32 Scopus citations

Abstract

A future challenge for international EM development is expanding the specialty to Africa, where it is non-existent. Another goal for international EM development is to assist in the peace process in the Middle East. There is increasing need for good EM development throughout the world. Development of international EM has been rapid, with most of the spread of development occurring in the last 10 years. There is great opportunity and reward for students, residents, and EM physicians to further promote and develop EM internationally.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	1-10
Number of pages	10
Journal	Emergency Medicine Clinics of North America
Volume	23
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emc.2004.09.013
State	Published - Feb 2005

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

Emergency Medicine

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10.1016/j.emc.2004.09.013

Cite this

@article{64b026a2635a421ea5642daff1be6eea,

title = "History of the development of international emergency medicine",

abstract = "A future challenge for international EM development is expanding the specialty to Africa, where it is non-existent. Another goal for international EM development is to assist in the peace process in the Middle East. There is increasing need for good EM development throughout the world. Development of international EM has been rapid, with most of the spread of development occurring in the last 10 years. There is great opportunity and reward for students, residents, and EM physicians to further promote and develop EM internationally.",

author = "Kumar Alagappan and Holliman, {C. James}",

note = "Funding Information: A number of organizations have been involved in international EM ( Box 1 ). Following is a brief description of the history of international involvement by each of these organizations. The International Federation for EM (IFEM) represents a consortium of national EM organizations and was founded by the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP), the British Association of Accident and Emergency Medicine, the Australasian College of Emergency Medicine (ACEM), and the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians (CAEP) in 1989. After an initial meeting in London in 1986, this group of four organizations has conducted an international conference on EM every other year. A pattern was set up to rotate the ICEM conference every other year from the United Kingdom to Australia to Canada to the United States. These ICEM conferences have been successful at generating collaboration and networking between physicians interested in international EM development. Most of the conferences have had 1000 or more registrants. IFEM extended membership to other national EM organizations in 1998. Current members of the IFEM and the year the organization joined are: ACEP 1989, BAEM 1989, CAEP 1989, ACEM 1989, Hong Kong 1998, Mexico 1999, China 1999, Korea 2000, Czech Republic 2000, Taiwan 2000, Singapore 2000, Israel 2000, Turkey 2002, Poland 2002, Netherlands 2002, South Africa 2002, Spain 2002, Ireland 2002, and Argentina 2003. The IFEM is developing policy statements on international health issues and an international core curriculum for EM. The organization is expected to vote to open up the host site for the ICEM to countries other than the original four founders starting in the year 2010. The IFEM consortium represents probably the most active, broad-based, international organization dealing with international EM development issues. For a number of years, ACEP did not have much active involvement in international EM except for its participation in the IFEM. In the late 1990s, the ACEP leadership started to directly support a number of EM activities [7] . ACEP members started a Section on International EM in 1998, which quickly became the second largest section within ACEP and currently has about 500 members. The ACEP leadership formed a task force on international EM that developed a long-term plan for further ACEP support of international EM efforts. In the mid to late 1990s, the Annals of Emergency Medicine published a series of articles describing EM development in different countries. ACEP leaders have recently become increasingly active with other countries' EM organizations, and it is expected that ACEP will soon start a process for formally endorsing other international EM conferences. SAEM had an international committee from 1991 to 1996 and then changed the committee to an International EM Interest Group [14] . This quickly became the largest interest group within SAEM. The members of the interest group developed a reference database on international EM rotations and fellowship programs, which was converted to a Web-based electronic format at Boston University and transferred to the ACEP Web site as a result of a section grant award from ACEP, where it is maintained and updated. Members of the SAEM International Interest Group published a series of articles that provided the academic underpinning and literature basis for organized international EM development efforts [4] . These articles included recommended curricula for international observational EM fellowships and international fellowship programs for United States EM residency graduates [7,15] . In addition, a listing all of the references published up to that time on international EM was compiled. Additional articles on methods for operation and evaluation of international EM projects and how to plan and develop EM at the national level in other countries were published [16–18] . The SAEM International Interest Group has conducted business meetings at the annual meetings of ACEP and SAEM since 1993 and has stimulated interest in international work among United States medical students and EM residents. SAEM also sponsored joint meetings with the UK Faculty of A&E Medicine in 1990, 1993, and 1998 and with the European Society of Emergency Medicine in San Marino in 1998. The members of the SAEM International interest group are active in promoting international EM research projects. The World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine (WADEM) was founded in 1976 as the “Club of Mainz.” The WADEM has conducted an international conference every 2 years since 1987 in a variety of locations across the globe [19] . The next conference for WADEM will be in 2005 in Edinburgh, Scotland. This organization has been concerned mainly with disaster medicine and not as much with EM system development. Many of the WADEM members are physicians from non-emergency medicine specialties. Prehospital and Disaster Medicine is the official journal of this organization and has published a number of articles related to international EM work. The American Academy of Emergency Medicine (AAEM) has had an international committee since 2000. The AAEM co-sponsored the First Mediterranean Congress on EM in Stresa, Italy in September 2001 and the Second Mediterranean Congress in Sitges, Spain, September 14 through 17, 2003. This conference attracted over 1000 EM physicians from 80 countries. The European Society of Emergency Medicine and the AAEM have co-sponsored the European Society of Emergency Medicine Congresses, with the last one being in Slovenia in September of 2002 and the next one scheduled for Leuven, Belgium in 2005. The AAEM has been actively encouraging its members to undertake international EM work. The European Society for Emergency Medicine (EuSEM) was founded at the IFEM conference in London in 1994. This organization conducted The First European Congress in Emergency Medicine in San Marino in 1998, which was widely attended. The EuSEM dropped out of sponsoring the second Congress, which was held in Wroclaw, Poland, in the year 2000 but resumed at the Congress in Slovenia in September 2002. The EuSEM co-conducted the Mediterranean Congress of EM in 2001 and 2003. The EuSEM has published The European Journal of Emergency Medicine since 1994 and published the important Manifesto for Emergency Medicine in Europe, which defines the needed structure for EM in the European countries. The EuSEM has started to develop recommendations for the standardization of training and certification in EM for the European countries. The EuSEM supports the disaster medicine training center and degree program in San Marino, Italy. The EuSEM has struggled to increase its membership and currently has a membership of about 200. The Asian Society of EM was founded in 1998 and has conducted multinational conferences in Singapore in 1999, Taiwan in 2001, and Hong Kong in 2003. The Asian Society is starting to develop curriculum recommendations and exchange programs for the Asian countries. EM has become well developed in a number of the Asian countries, including Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea, Taiwan, The Peoples Republic of China, and the Philippines. Emergency International (EI), originally named “The Society for the International Advancement of Emergency Medical Care,” started in the late 1980s. Early on this organization mainly conducted medical tours but developed into a grass roots organization devoted to assisting EM development in other countries. The organization had a number of regional-based projects, most prominently in China, The Middle East, and Latin America. EI conducted business meetings at the annual meetings of ACEP and SAEM regularly, but in the last several years EI has developed significant financial problems. The organization has not had any recent major development activities. The International Medical Corps (IMC) was started by Dr. Bob Simon of Cook County Hospital in Chicago in the 1980s to provide medical care for Afghan refugees. The organization has been active in promoting refugee relief work in a number of different countries and in developing training programs for rural health care personnel [20] . Doctors without Borders (Medicines Sans Frontieres, MSF) is devoted mainly to international refugee relief work. MSF was dominated by French nonemergency physicians until the mid-1990s, when it started to use more EM physicians. MSF received the Noble Peace Prize in 1999 for its work in the Balkans and in Africa. IMC and MSF are active and interested in recruiting emergency physicians as volunteer and as paid workers [21] . The Center for International EMS was founded in 1991 by Elco Dykstra. This organization was originally headquartered in Wiesbaden, Germany and then in the Netherlands. The organization conducted a series of EM conferences that provided significant networking opportunities for emergency physicians from multiple countries. These conferences were entitled the Pan European Conferences on EMS. The first was conducted in Budapest, Hungary in 1992 and then Abano Terme, Italy 1994, Prague The Czech Republic in 1996, and Opatija, Croatia in 1998. The Center developed some financial problems and dissolved after being unable to organize a conference in Turkey in 2000. The Pan Arab Society of Trauma and Emergency Medicine was founded in 2002 and is currently headquartered in Doha, Qatar. This organization conducted the Qatar International Trauma and Emergency Medicine Conference in Doha in 2002, which had over 800 attendees. The organization conducted a second international EM conference in Doha April 7 through 11, 2004. The organization has published The Middle Eastern Journal of Emergency Medicine since 2001, and some of its members have conducted active regional training programs in modular EM courses in Doha for the last several years. The American Academy for Emergency Medicine in India (AAEMI) was founded in 2001. The AAEMI represents a group focused on helping EM develop in a single country (India). The organization has cosponsored international conferences in India since 2002 with the Society for EM in India [22] . These are among the few internationally located conferences that have been awarded Category I CME credit. The next conference was conducted in Mumbai, India in November 2004. AAEMI has several committees working on projects related to international research, EMS development in India, and standardized curriculum recommendations for EM training. ",

year = "2005",

month = feb,

doi = "10.1016/j.emc.2004.09.013",

language = "English (US)",

volume = "23",

pages = "1--10",

journal = "Emergency Medicine Clinics of North America",

issn = "0733-8627",

publisher = "W.B. Saunders Ltd",

number = "1",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - History of the development of international emergency medicine

AU - Alagappan, Kumar

AU - Holliman, C. James

N1 - Funding Information: A number of organizations have been involved in international EM ( Box 1 ). Following is a brief description of the history of international involvement by each of these organizations. The International Federation for EM (IFEM) represents a consortium of national EM organizations and was founded by the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP), the British Association of Accident and Emergency Medicine, the Australasian College of Emergency Medicine (ACEM), and the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians (CAEP) in 1989. After an initial meeting in London in 1986, this group of four organizations has conducted an international conference on EM every other year. A pattern was set up to rotate the ICEM conference every other year from the United Kingdom to Australia to Canada to the United States. These ICEM conferences have been successful at generating collaboration and networking between physicians interested in international EM development. Most of the conferences have had 1000 or more registrants. IFEM extended membership to other national EM organizations in 1998. Current members of the IFEM and the year the organization joined are: ACEP 1989, BAEM 1989, CAEP 1989, ACEM 1989, Hong Kong 1998, Mexico 1999, China 1999, Korea 2000, Czech Republic 2000, Taiwan 2000, Singapore 2000, Israel 2000, Turkey 2002, Poland 2002, Netherlands 2002, South Africa 2002, Spain 2002, Ireland 2002, and Argentina 2003. The IFEM is developing policy statements on international health issues and an international core curriculum for EM. The organization is expected to vote to open up the host site for the ICEM to countries other than the original four founders starting in the year 2010. The IFEM consortium represents probably the most active, broad-based, international organization dealing with international EM development issues. For a number of years, ACEP did not have much active involvement in international EM except for its participation in the IFEM. In the late 1990s, the ACEP leadership started to directly support a number of EM activities [7] . ACEP members started a Section on International EM in 1998, which quickly became the second largest section within ACEP and currently has about 500 members. The ACEP leadership formed a task force on international EM that developed a long-term plan for further ACEP support of international EM efforts. In the mid to late 1990s, the Annals of Emergency Medicine published a series of articles describing EM development in different countries. ACEP leaders have recently become increasingly active with other countries' EM organizations, and it is expected that ACEP will soon start a process for formally endorsing other international EM conferences. SAEM had an international committee from 1991 to 1996 and then changed the committee to an International EM Interest Group [14] . This quickly became the largest interest group within SAEM. The members of the interest group developed a reference database on international EM rotations and fellowship programs, which was converted to a Web-based electronic format at Boston University and transferred to the ACEP Web site as a result of a section grant award from ACEP, where it is maintained and updated. Members of the SAEM International Interest Group published a series of articles that provided the academic underpinning and literature basis for organized international EM development efforts [4] . These articles included recommended curricula for international observational EM fellowships and international fellowship programs for United States EM residency graduates [7,15] . In addition, a listing all of the references published up to that time on international EM was compiled. Additional articles on methods for operation and evaluation of international EM projects and how to plan and develop EM at the national level in other countries were published [16–18] . The SAEM International Interest Group has conducted business meetings at the annual meetings of ACEP and SAEM since 1993 and has stimulated interest in international work among United States medical students and EM residents. SAEM also sponsored joint meetings with the UK Faculty of A&E Medicine in 1990, 1993, and 1998 and with the European Society of Emergency Medicine in San Marino in 1998. The members of the SAEM International interest group are active in promoting international EM research projects. The World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine (WADEM) was founded in 1976 as the “Club of Mainz.” The WADEM has conducted an international conference every 2 years since 1987 in a variety of locations across the globe [19] . The next conference for WADEM will be in 2005 in Edinburgh, Scotland. This organization has been concerned mainly with disaster medicine and not as much with EM system development. Many of the WADEM members are physicians from non-emergency medicine specialties. Prehospital and Disaster Medicine is the official journal of this organization and has published a number of articles related to international EM work. The American Academy of Emergency Medicine (AAEM) has had an international committee since 2000. The AAEM co-sponsored the First Mediterranean Congress on EM in Stresa, Italy in September 2001 and the Second Mediterranean Congress in Sitges, Spain, September 14 through 17, 2003. This conference attracted over 1000 EM physicians from 80 countries. The European Society of Emergency Medicine and the AAEM have co-sponsored the European Society of Emergency Medicine Congresses, with the last one being in Slovenia in September of 2002 and the next one scheduled for Leuven, Belgium in 2005. The AAEM has been actively encouraging its members to undertake international EM work. The European Society for Emergency Medicine (EuSEM) was founded at the IFEM conference in London in 1994. This organization conducted The First European Congress in Emergency Medicine in San Marino in 1998, which was widely attended. The EuSEM dropped out of sponsoring the second Congress, which was held in Wroclaw, Poland, in the year 2000 but resumed at the Congress in Slovenia in September 2002. The EuSEM co-conducted the Mediterranean Congress of EM in 2001 and 2003. The EuSEM has published The European Journal of Emergency Medicine since 1994 and published the important Manifesto for Emergency Medicine in Europe, which defines the needed structure for EM in the European countries. The EuSEM has started to develop recommendations for the standardization of training and certification in EM for the European countries. The EuSEM supports the disaster medicine training center and degree program in San Marino, Italy. The EuSEM has struggled to increase its membership and currently has a membership of about 200. The Asian Society of EM was founded in 1998 and has conducted multinational conferences in Singapore in 1999, Taiwan in 2001, and Hong Kong in 2003. The Asian Society is starting to develop curriculum recommendations and exchange programs for the Asian countries. EM has become well developed in a number of the Asian countries, including Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea, Taiwan, The Peoples Republic of China, and the Philippines. Emergency International (EI), originally named “The Society for the International Advancement of Emergency Medical Care,” started in the late 1980s. Early on this organization mainly conducted medical tours but developed into a grass roots organization devoted to assisting EM development in other countries. The organization had a number of regional-based projects, most prominently in China, The Middle East, and Latin America. EI conducted business meetings at the annual meetings of ACEP and SAEM regularly, but in the last several years EI has developed significant financial problems. The organization has not had any recent major development activities. The International Medical Corps (IMC) was started by Dr. Bob Simon of Cook County Hospital in Chicago in the 1980s to provide medical care for Afghan refugees. The organization has been active in promoting refugee relief work in a number of different countries and in developing training programs for rural health care personnel [20] . Doctors without Borders (Medicines Sans Frontieres, MSF) is devoted mainly to international refugee relief work. MSF was dominated by French nonemergency physicians until the mid-1990s, when it started to use more EM physicians. MSF received the Noble Peace Prize in 1999 for its work in the Balkans and in Africa. IMC and MSF are active and interested in recruiting emergency physicians as volunteer and as paid workers [21] . The Center for International EMS was founded in 1991 by Elco Dykstra. This organization was originally headquartered in Wiesbaden, Germany and then in the Netherlands. The organization conducted a series of EM conferences that provided significant networking opportunities for emergency physicians from multiple countries. These conferences were entitled the Pan European Conferences on EMS. The first was conducted in Budapest, Hungary in 1992 and then Abano Terme, Italy 1994, Prague The Czech Republic in 1996, and Opatija, Croatia in 1998. The Center developed some financial problems and dissolved after being unable to organize a conference in Turkey in 2000. The Pan Arab Society of Trauma and Emergency Medicine was founded in 2002 and is currently headquartered in Doha, Qatar. This organization conducted the Qatar International Trauma and Emergency Medicine Conference in Doha in 2002, which had over 800 attendees. The organization conducted a second international EM conference in Doha April 7 through 11, 2004. The organization has published The Middle Eastern Journal of Emergency Medicine since 2001, and some of its members have conducted active regional training programs in modular EM courses in Doha for the last several years. The American Academy for Emergency Medicine in India (AAEMI) was founded in 2001. The AAEMI represents a group focused on helping EM develop in a single country (India). The organization has cosponsored international conferences in India since 2002 with the Society for EM in India [22] . These are among the few internationally located conferences that have been awarded Category I CME credit. The next conference was conducted in Mumbai, India in November 2004. AAEMI has several committees working on projects related to international research, EMS development in India, and standardized curriculum recommendations for EM training.

PY - 2005/2

Y1 - 2005/2

N2 - A future challenge for international EM development is expanding the specialty to Africa, where it is non-existent. Another goal for international EM development is to assist in the peace process in the Middle East. There is increasing need for good EM development throughout the world. Development of international EM has been rapid, with most of the spread of development occurring in the last 10 years. There is great opportunity and reward for students, residents, and EM physicians to further promote and develop EM internationally.

AB - A future challenge for international EM development is expanding the specialty to Africa, where it is non-existent. Another goal for international EM development is to assist in the peace process in the Middle East. There is increasing need for good EM development throughout the world. Development of international EM has been rapid, with most of the spread of development occurring in the last 10 years. There is great opportunity and reward for students, residents, and EM physicians to further promote and develop EM internationally.

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U2 - 10.1016/j.emc.2004.09.013

DO - 10.1016/j.emc.2004.09.013

M3 - Review article

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JO - Emergency Medicine Clinics of North America

JF - Emergency Medicine Clinics of North America

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History of the development of international emergency medicine

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