The Medical Residency Programs in Emergency Medicine began in 1996 in Brazil. At the time, it was recognized as just a course, not a specialization and the first training center was Hospital de Pronto Socorro de Porto Alegre (HPS). The HPS was the country’s first specialized service and remains active to this day. After a long period of advocacy within the medical community, it was only in 2015 that Emergency Medicine was officially recognized as a medical specialty by the Conselho Federal de Medicina (CFM), the agency responsible for the regulation of medicine in the country. Due to its recent establishment, the residency programs in the country are still in the process of structuring medical education in this specialty – and this is no different for the Grupo Hospitalar Conceição (GHC). Thus, the Emergency Medicine Residency program at GHC appreciates the opportunity to utilize the Rosh Review tool as a reference in our training.
The GHC was founded in 1960, with the inauguration of the Hospital Nossa Senhora da Conceição in the city of Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul (RS), Brazil. In 2018, after approval from the Ministério da Educação e Cultura (MEC), which regulates the medical resident programs in the country, the group began training physicians and medical doctors in Emergency Medicine. Since then, three groups of residents have completed the residency between the years 2020 and 2022, totalling thirteen emergency medicine physicians trained by this institution. Our program offers 6 admission spots annually, and we currently have 14 residents in training. Among them, there are 5 first year residents, 5 second-year residents, and 4 third-year residents, who come from various public and private universities across the country.
The goal of GHC’s emergency medicine residency is to train compassionate and skilled emergency physicians, equipped with evidence-based practices, who can contribute to the specialty’s landscape in the country, fostering its growth and recognition for its significance. Graduates from our residency program work in prominent emergency departments across Brazil, both in public and private hospitals, such as Hospital Cristo Redentor, Hospital Nossa Senhora da Conceição, Hospital São Lucas, and even in leadership roles like coordinating the emergency medicine residency at Hospital Municipal Souza Aguiar Municipal in Niterói, Rio de Janeiro – the state’s first program of its kind. In Brazil, we lack native Portuguese textbooks for Emergency Medicine; we rely on translated manuals. Therefore, we use Tintinalli’s and Rosen’s as our fundamental references. As previously mentioned, we employ the Foundations of Emergency Medicine guide for clinical case discussions – which does have limitations due to the differing epidemiology of Brazilian diseases compared to developed countries. Manuals like Walls also constitute a theoretical cornerstone of our program. In addition, the use of Rosh Review will aid in our residents’ individual development and help diagnose our residency program’s strengths and weaknesses. By comparing our residents’ knowledge areas’ results with those from other programs on the platform, we can identify potential teaching gaps and refine our teaching and learning processes, thereby nurturing increasingly skilled emergency physicians. Undoubtedly, Rosh Review’s rich illustrations and detailed explanations will serve not only as motivation but also as an unparalleled source of knowledge, enhancing our technical and professional growth, while also contributing to the expansion and advancement of Emergency Medicine in Brazil.