Emergency Medicine Around the World: Analysis of the 2019 American College of Emergency Physicians International Ambassador Country Reports

Objective The specialty of emergency medicine and recognition of the need for emergency care continue to grow globally. The specialty and emergency care systems vary according to context. This study characterizes the specialty of emergency medicine around the world, trends according to region and income level, and challenges for the specialty. Methods We distributed a 56‐question electronic survey to all members of the American College of Emergency Physicians International Ambassador Program between March 2019 and January 2020. The Ambassador Program leadership designed the survey covering specialty recognition, workforce, system components, and emergency medicine training. We analyzed results by country and in aggregate using SAS software (SAS Institute Inc). We tested the associations between World Bank income group and number of emergency medicine residency‐trained physicians (RTPs) and emergency medicine specialty recognition using non‐parametric Fisher's exact testing. We performed inductive coding of qualitative data for themes. Results Sixty‐three out of 78 countries’ teams (80%) responded to the survey. Response countries represented roughly 67% of the world's population and included countries in all World Bank income groups. Fifty‐four countries (86%) recognized emergency medicine as a specialty. Ten (16%) had no emergency medicine residency programs, and 19 (30%) had only one. Eight (11%) reported having no emergency medicine RTPs and 30 (48%) had 5 emergency medicine RTPs per 100,000 population, all high income. All 5 low‐income countries in the sample had