Education

Program Director:  Mara Aloi, MD, RDMS

Length of Emergency Medicine (EM) Residency Program: 3 Years
Number of EM Program Positions: 30 Total (10 per year)

Length of EM/IM (Internal Medicine) Program: 5 Years
Number of EM/IM Program Positions: 10 Total (2 per year)

Our Emergency Medicine (EM) Residency Program is a three-year program that offers ten PGY-1 positions each year. The program prepares residents to provide emergency medical services (EMS) and to serve as EMS advisors to the hospital and community. Enthusiastic board-certified emergency physicians constitute the program's EM faculty. Through comprehensive clinical experience and varied research opportunities, residents are trained in medical care for acute and life-threatening situations.

The residency's home clinical location, Allegheny General Hospital, logs more than 40,000 emergency medicine visits annually, giving residents an opportunity to observe a wide variety of patients, including those with medical, surgical, toxicologic, traumatic and psychiatric problems. Because admission rate and patient acuity levels are high, residents are exposed to an excellent clinical mix. Pediatric patients comprise one-fifth of the patient population. There is an inpatient pediatric rotation at Allegheny General Hospital as well as a pediatric intensive care rotation at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh and a pediatric emergency department elective.

Our Emergency Medicine Residency Program offers a diverse experience in EMS and critical care transport medicine. Our LifeFlight program exposes residents to advanced prehospital care in both the interhospital and scene environments. Resident involvement can begin in the first two years, accompanying the flight team in an observation status. After the second year, residents can choose a rotation as a team member, functionally replacing one of the flight nurses. Ground EMS experience begins with the intern riding along with one of our nine affiliated EMS agencies. After completing their internship, residents may elect to participate in our Assistant EMS Medical Director program, which allows residents to take ownership of an EMS agency throughout the remainder of the residency. These residents function under the supervision of the agency's medical director, learning the intricacies of EMS medical direction. Our residents also participate in yearly hospital-wide mass casualty drills and provide medical coverage for regional and national events such as the Pennsic Wars.

Quality assurance is a key component of the Emergency Medicine Residency Program. There are numerous aspects of quality assurance, including daily record review, that help ensure proper patient care and educational feedback to the Emergency Department staff. In addition, prospective and retrospective studies are periodically conducted on such topics as diagnostic imaging and electrocardiography results interpretation, resuscitation techniques, infectious disease treatment and patient follow-up.