PENSACOLA, Fla. (WALA) -Ascension Sacred Heart Hospital has launched a new emergency medicine residency program in partnership with the Florida State University College of Medicine, with the goal of training physicians to serve a region that spans four states.
The hospital’s emergency room sees between 150 and 200 patients per day and is the only Level One Trauma Center between Mobile and Gainesville.
Program details
The first class includes 15 residents selected through the match process. The program was developed over the last year and a half and will add 15 residents each year, growing to 45 residents by the start of year three. Residents will spend three years in the program, working shifts in the emergency room and rotating through specialties including trauma, intensive care and pediatrics.
Filling a regional need
Emergency physician and Emergency Medicine Program Director Dr. Andrea Austin said the hospital draws patients from across a wide geographic area.
“We have a huge catchment of between Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida receiving trauma patients and we are a medically underserved region that needs more emergency physicians,” Austin said…