Hospitals have always had to make arrangements for those who arrive at their doors seeking help. Over the years the numbers and complexity of problems presenting in this way have increased at an exponential rate. This increase in demand has been managed in different ways in different countries but in North America, Australia, some parts of Europe and the United Kingdom a new medical specialty has evolved, that of accident and emergency (A&E) medicine (UK) or emergency medicine. This article will examine the evolution of the specialty in the United Kingdom and also look at the possible future changes in the scope of the specialty.... ....Throughout this paper the specialty has been referred to as A&E medicine. Increasingly emergency medicine is being used as a title for consultants and to describe departments. There is much debate on whether we should formally change. We do see and treat both accidents and emergencies. The public has a growing respect for the specialty and the recent high profile “A&E modernisation” initiative has further cemented the title as “A&E”. Yet it is probably only a matter of time until the groundswell of opinion from within the specialty forces a change. We practise the most acute parts of “medicine” in its widest context including medicine, surgery, anaesthesia, paediatrics, psychiatry. Our specialty, where it exists in the rest of the world is called emergency medicine. It is clear that if in the future we might want to change the name of our specialty then we should delay debate no longer. (term-accident-vs-injury)
Language: en
LA - en SN - 1351-0622 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/emj.17.5.314 ID - ref1 ER -