Report of the task force on residency training information, American Board of Emergency Medicine

To the best of our knowledge, the information presented in this document is the most comprehensive compilation of facts and figures pertaining to residency training in emergency medicine. These data accurately portray the current and recent past status of training in the specialty. One of the fundamental points we see in these data is the steady growth in emergency medicine training. This is most apparent when we consider the consistent increase in the number of accredited categorical programs and enrolled residents. Steady growth rate patterns, such as the ones seen in these data, have been observed since the development of the original training programs. Overall, the data contained in this report reflect the consistent high desirability of emergency medicine as a specialty area for training. Finally, it is our desire that the information contained in this publication will be used to: (1) aid educators in improving the standards of training in emergency medicine, (2) assist policymakers in arriving at well-informed decisions, (3) provide investigators with descriptive data that may lend itself to hypothesis generation and further analyses, and (4) to offer the emergency medicine community, as well as the medical community at large, a better understanding of the evolution and dynamic nature of residency training in this maturing discipline.