State of emergency medicine in Colombia

Abstract

Colombia is an upper-middle-income country with a population of 45 million people and one of the best national healthcare and medical education systems in South America. However, its widely diverse and difficult terrains hinder healthcare delivery to rural areas, creating disparities in healthcare access and outcomes between the urban and rural settings. Currently, emergency medical care is overwhelmingly provided by general practitioners without residency training, who obtain specialty consultations based on the medical/surgical condition identified. A few emergency medicine (EM) residency programs have sprouted over the last two decades in renowned academic institutions in the largest cities, producing high-quality EM specialists. With the establishment of EM as a specialty in 2005 and increasing recognition of the specialty, there has been an increasing demand for EM specialists in cities, which is only slowly being met by the current residencies. The critical challenges for EM in Colombia are both, establishing itself as a well-recognized specialty - by increasing academic production and reaching a critical mass of and unity among EM specialists - and providing the highest quality and safest emergency care to the people of Colombia - by improving capacity both in emergency departments and in the regional and national emergency response systems. Historically, the establishment of EM as a strongly organized specialty in other countries has spanned decades (e.g., the United States), and Colombia has been making significant progress in a similar trajectory.