ACEP ID:
Originally approved June 2019
A joint policy statement of the American College of Emergency Physicians, American Academy of Emergency Medicine, American Academy of Emergency Medicine Resident and Student Association, American Board of Emergency Medicine, American College of Osteopathic Emergency Physicians Graduate Medical Education Committee, American Osteopathic Board of Emergency Medicine, Association of Academic Chairs of Emergency Medicine, Council of Emergency Medicine Residency Directors, Emergency Medicine Residents’ Association, Society for Academic Emergency Medicine, and the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine Resident and Medical Students
Emergency medicine is unique in that it provides 24-hour clinical care for a diverse range of high-acuity, life-threatening illnesses and requires direct, continuous, on-site faculty supervision of residents. Because a substantial portion of residency education consequently occurs outside the domain of regular clinical shifts, protection of core faculty educational time is essential. Core faculty have been defined as those faculty who work clinically and devote the majority of their professional efforts to emergency medicine graduate medical education (GME).1 Program leadership and core faculty are critical to the success of the training missions of emergency medicine residency and fellowship programs. Core faculty require compensated time to engage in necessary residency education, administration, and scholarly activities outside of the clinical environment; without protected time for core faculty to accomplish this, the quality of emergency medicine residency training and clinical care may decline. At a minimum, all emergency medicine core faculty should be allocated protected time per the 2017 Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) Emergency Medicine Common Program Requirements: emergency medicine core faculty clinical hours should be limited to no more than 28 hours per week or 1344 hours per year, whichever is fewer.1