In continuous operation and fully accredited since 1974, the Emergency Medicine (EM) Residency program at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center is the oldest EM residency program in the Southeast and one of the first programs in the country. We are proud of our history but even more excited about our future: continuing to train high-quality emergency physicians who are capable of practicing EM in whatever setting they choose.
The Medical Center is a 885-bed tertiary care institution affiliated with the Wake Forest University School of Medicine. Our emergency department, a Level I adult and pediatric trauma center, has an annual volume of more than 110,000 patient visits and sees the entire spectrum of human illness. Brenner Children’s Hospital, a 160-bed tertiary care center for children, is located on campus.
Moses Cone Memorial Hospital, located in Greensboro, NC, is our affiliated community hospital. Our residents rotate through their busy emergency department (ED) for a valuable community-based EM experience.
Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist offers programs to support underrepresented minority residents and fellows training at Wake Forest Baptist and the school of medicine. Learn more about the Kennedy Hopkins Scholars program.
Program Goals
- To train board-prepared emergency physicians who are true specialists in all aspects of emergency care.
A carefully prepared curriculum combines the unique strengths of two institutions (the Medical Center and Moses Cone) with the flexibility to tailor a program to individual interests through elective rotations. We are committed to the concept of graded responsibility: residents’ responsibilities increase as they progress through the program, gaining more responsibility and autonomy each successive year.
Why Train at Wake Forest University School of Medicine
“The cornerstone of our program is outstanding clinical training. Our university and community training sites offer a combined emergency department census approaching 200,000 patient visits per year and growing.”
- Cedric Lefebvre, MD, Residency Program Director, Department of Emergency Medicine
Read the full Welcome Note from Dr. Lefebvre.
Superior Clinical Training
We believe that EM is best learned in the ED. It’s not just the knowledge and procedure skill base that’s acquired in the ED—it’s the spirit and mindset too. Other clinical rotations have been designed to complement the emergency experience and follow the progression of various disease states in both adults and children and to help residents acquire necessary procedural skills.
Our residents receive exceptional training in the areas of pediatrics and critical care. They’re exposed to a large volume of pediatric patients in both the pediatric intensive care unit (ICU) and ED. Residents are assigned pediatric ED shifts throughout the year (about 20 percent of total ED shifts), ensuring they don't miss out on treating any seasonal illnesses.
Our ICU curriculum is strong, with our residents completing five primary ICU rotations in place of ward rotations. This ensures abundant exposure to critically ill patients and experience with advanced resuscitation and therapeutic interventions.
Progressive Responsibility
Our "graded responsibility" in resident education is truly the foundation that makes our training program one of the best in the country.
During the internship year, our focus is on nurturing high-quality practice. Interns are closely supervised during their initial months in the ED to ensure the development of fundamental EM skills. This year is designed to help the resident become familiar with the wide spectrum of pathology in our specialty. Our residents spend over half of their internship in the emergency department—more than most other EM training programs.
In the second year, residents spend more time in the ED, with increasing responsibility and autonomy. Efficiency and multi-tasking are emphasized. Second-year residents are expected to manage multiple patients simultaneously with varying degrees of acuity. It is during the second year that our residents start to blossom into becoming effective emergency physicians.
The goal of the final year of training is for senior residents to achieve overall competence in the practice of EM. In addition to caring for their own patients, they assist the attending physician in the overall management of the ED. Senior residents learn to communicate with referring physicians, administer online medical commands to incoming EMS units and helicopters, and deal with common daily administrative issues that arise. They also help supervise and teach junior-level residents and medical students.
