Questions to Ask an Emergency Medicine Physician
These questions to ask an emergency medicine physician are for premeds, medical students and anyone shadowing in an emergency department who gets a few minutes, or a whole coffee, with someone who does the job. They run in the order such a conversation tends to take: the shift itself, the cases and procedures, the hospital around the department, the hours, how people last in the work, and deciding whether it is for you. On a busy shift you may only get to ask one at a time, so pick two or three from each group before you go.
The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
The shift
What does a shift look like from the minute you walk in to the minute you leave?
Why ask it
Ask for the order of events: taking over patients from the doctor going home, picking up the first new chart, the last hour when they try to stop starting workups. The end is the piece students rarely picture, so ask how long past the scheduled finish they are usually still writing notes.
How many patients do you see in a shift, and how many are you managing at once?
Why ask it
The second number describes the job better than the first. Keeping several workups moving, each waiting on a different result, is the skill the specialty runs on. Neither figure travels well between departments, so write down the size of this one beside it.
How much of what comes through the door is a true emergency?
Why ask it
Many physicians will say the resuscitations are a small slice and the bulk is pain, worry, chronic illness and people with nowhere else to go, though the mix shifts with the neighborhood and the hour. Pay attention to your own reaction. If the everyday share sounds like a letdown, it is better to learn that now than after you have committed to the specialty.
How much of a shift do you spend with patients, and how much charting or on the phone?
Why ask it
Watching from a corner, you count the minutes in the room and miss the rest. A rough split in the doctor's own words tells you how much of the job is talking to patients and how much is documenting, ordering and arranging where people go next. Follow up by asking which part they would hand off if they could.
What makes you walk out thinking that was a good shift?
Why ask it
The reply is the daily reward of the job in their own words, and it is often small: a diagnosis caught early, a family who understood the plan, a team that clicked. If you had guessed the dramatic save and they say leaving on time with every note written, sit with that gap.
How do you decide who to see next when the board is full?
Why ask it
Triage sets the first order, and the physician keeps re-sorting it all shift. Listen for what moves someone up the list: a vital sign, a nurse's unease, a glance from the doorway. That running judgment is hard to spot when you are shadowing, so ask them to point it out the next time it happens.
How often are you interrupted, and how do you keep hold of what you were doing?
Why ask it
A nurse with an ECG to sign, a call back from the lab, an ambulance arriving: the interruptions are part of the work, not a failure of it. Ask what their system is, whether a paper list, the tracking board or a rule about finishing one task first. If never completing a thought sounds miserable, say so and hear how they adjusted.
What happens in the department when several very sick patients arrive together?
Why ask it
The answer shows how the place stretches: who gets called down, who takes which room, what the stable patients are told while they wait. A department with several doctors on handles it very differently from one with a single physician overnight. If this one is ever covered by one doctor alone, ask what that doctor does first.
How do you hand your patients over at the end of a shift, and what makes a handoff go wrong?
Why ask it
Some patients are still mid-workup when the clock runs out, so the handoff carries real weight. Listen for what they insist on saying out loud: the result still pending, the plan if it comes back abnormal, the patient they are uneasy about. Ask it shortly before a shift change you will get to watch.
Cases
What did you see on your last shift, from the first patient to the last?
Why ask it
One real shift gets you a list where 'every day is different' gets you a slogan. Note the ages, how many were sick and how many could have gone to a clinic. Remind them you only want the complaints, nothing that could identify anyone.
Which procedures do you do yourself here, and which go to another service?
Why ask it
Who manages the airway, reduces the fracture, places the central line or sedates a child is decided hospital by hospital. Ask how it works in this department, then ask how it would differ somewhere with fewer specialists in the building. The gap between the two answers is the range of the specialty.
How often do you personally run a resuscitation or take a difficult airway?
Why ask it
The honest figure depends on the department's volume and how the cases are shared out, and it is often lower than television suggests. The follow-up matters more: how do they keep a skill ready that they may not use for weeks? Simulation, courses and deliberate practice are common answers.
How do you feel about sending someone home without knowing exactly what caused their symptoms?
Why ask it
Much of the work is ruling out the dangerous possibilities instead of naming the cause. Ask how they explain that to a patient and what they tell people to come back for. Whether that way of thinking appeals to you or leaves you itching for the answer is one of the clearer signs of fit.
Which patients do you find hardest to look after?
Why ask it
You might hear sick infants, psychiatric crises, frail older people with ten problems or someone in pain they cannot fix. The category matters less than the reason, so ask why. Then ask whether it got easier with the years or they simply got steadier.
How do you tell a family you have only just met that someone has died?
Why ask it
In this specialty the news often goes to strangers, minutes after the doctor first heard the patient's name. Ask where they learned to do it and who goes into the room with them. Keep it for a sit-down conversation, because on a shift it may have happened an hour ago.
How much of your work is mental health, addiction, homelessness or other problems medicine alone cannot fix?
Why ask it
The share tracks the community around the hospital, which is why two physicians a few miles apart can answer so differently. Ask what the department can offer those patients, such as a social worker or a crisis team, and what the doctor does at four in the morning when none of it is available.
Does it bother you that you rarely find out what happened to your patients?
Why ask it
Some emergency physicians look up their admitted patients the next day; others like the clean break. Neither is wrong, but which one you would be says something. If you light up at the thought of knowing a patient for ten years, raise that and ask what they would tell you.
How much do you rely on bedside ultrasound, and where did you learn it?
Why ask it
Use varies by doctor and by when they trained. Ask to see a scan if one comes up during your shift, and ask what it changed about the decision in front of them. It is also a low-key way to find out who in the department likes to teach.
What is the last case that taught you something?
Why ask it
This asks for ordinary learning and not a war story, and it shows whether the job still stretches them. Good replies are specific: a presentation that fooled them, a drug interaction, a conversation they would run differently. Let them choose the level of detail.
How would your work be different at a small rural hospital or a major trauma center?
Why ask it
Many physicians have worked in more than one kind of department, or trained with people who went to the other kind. The comparison shows what changes with setting: backup, transfers, how sick the patients are, how alone you are at night. Use it to decide which kind of department to visit next.
The hospital
What is it like calling a consultant at three in the morning?
Why ask it
A large part of the job is persuading someone else to come in, admit or advise. Ask what a good call sounds like: the opening sentence, the question being asked, what they have ready before dialing. Many will also volunteer which services are a pleasure to call and which are not.
What happens when you think a patient needs to be admitted and the inpatient team does not?
Why ask it
Every hospital has its own way of settling this, written or unwritten. Listen for whether they describe a route for escalating or a negotiation they carry alone. It tells you how much standing the emergency department has in that building.
How much boarding is there in this department, and what does it do to your shift?
Why ask it
Boarding is the usual name for admitted patients who are still waiting in the emergency department for a bed upstairs. Ask how many of the department's rooms are taken up that way on an ordinary day and where new patients are seen when they are. Someone who has worked there a few years can compare winter with summer, and this year with their first.
Who do you lean on most during a shift?
Why ask it
Roles come out here: the charge nurse, a tech who can get a line in anyone, the pharmacist, the clerk who knows every phone number. A doctor who answers quickly and specifically is describing a team that works. Introduce yourself to whoever they name.
Do you supervise residents, physician assistants or nurse practitioners, and how does that change what you do?
Why ask it
Supervising means hearing presentations and seeing fewer patients start to finish yourself, which some doctors enjoy and some miss. Ask which they are, and how many people they are answerable for at once on a busy evening. Who works under a physician, and how closely, is set by the hospital and by local rules.
Who employs you, and how much does that shape the job?
Why ask it
Depending on where you are, an emergency physician might work for the hospital, a university, a group owned by its doctors or a large staffing company. Ask what the arrangement is here and who decides how many doctors are on at once. It is a dry subject that governs more of working life than students expect.
Which numbers are you measured on, and do they change how you practice?
Why ask it
Wait times, length of stay, patients seen per hour and satisfaction scores are typical, though the set depends on the employer. Ask which ones they think are fair and which push them toward decisions they would not otherwise make. Their tone when answering is worth as much as the list.
How do you deal with a patient or relative who is angry or threatening?
Why ask it
There are two answers here: what the doctor personally does to calm a room, and what the department provides, such as security staff or training. The second differs from hospital to hospital. You can also ask whether they have ever felt unsafe at work, and accept a short answer if that is what you get.
Hours
What does your schedule look like across a normal month?
Why ask it
Get the real count: shifts, nights, weekends and how long each one runs. Then ask who builds the schedule and how far a request for a particular day off gets. If they are willing to pull up the actual calendar, that beats any description.
How do you get through the switch from days to nights and back?
Why ask it
You will collect habits, not rules: what they do before a first night and after a last one may not suit you at all. The more useful signal is how much of their time off goes to recovering.
Have nights become harder as you have gotten older?
Why ask it
Put this to someone ten or more years in. If the answer is yes, ask whether their group lets senior doctors cut back on nights and what they give up in return. Arrangements like that vary by employer and are not always written down.
Which holidays did you work last year, and how is that decided?
Why ask it
Somebody has to be on for each one, and groups settle it differently: rotation, trades, seniority. The more telling half is what the doctor's household does when the holiday lands on a shift, and whether anyone at home still minds.
When a shift ends, are you really done?
Why ask it
Walking out with no pager and no clinic inbox is a selling point you will hear often. Check it against practice: notes finished at home, meetings on days off, committee or teaching duties. The answer often turns on whether the doctor holds an administrative or academic role on top of clinical shifts.
What do you do with a free weekday, and is it a fair trade for the weekends?
Why ask it
Time off in the middle of the week is real but does not line up with most other people's. Ask whether they see friends less or just differently. People who love the schedule and people who resent it will often describe the same calendar.
How does the schedule work alongside a partner or children?
Why ask it
Only ask if they have mentioned family, and frame it as their experience, not a general rule. The useful details are practical: who covers mornings after a night shift, how far ahead the schedule comes out, whether swaps are easy. A doctor without children can still tell you what colleagues do.
Lasting
How long do you see yourself working full-time clinical shifts?
Why ask it
This is a gentler route into longevity than asking about burnout outright. Some will name an age, some a number of shifts a month they plan to drop to. Ask what the oldest doctors in their group are doing now.
What wears on you most, and is it what you expected when you started?
Why ask it
The usual outsider's guess is death or gore. Listen for whether it is instead crowding, paperwork, hostility or decisions shaped by things outside the room. If the strain comes from the system, ask whether a different hospital would feel different.
How much does the worry about having missed something follow you home?
Why ask it
The job means deciding on incomplete information many times a shift, so an honest answer usually includes a patient they kept thinking about. Ask what they do with the thought: look up the result the next morning, phone the patient, or let it go. Whether the fear is of harm, a complaint or a lawsuit depends on where they practice, and they will tell you which.
What do you do after a shift where something went badly?
Why ask it
Ask about the mechanics: a debrief with the team, a colleague they call, the drive home. Then ask what the department offers formally and whether people take it up. If the reply is brief, leave it there.
Have you ever come close to leaving, and what kept you?
Why ask it
Save this for a conversation that has already turned candid, and never ask it in front of colleagues. What kept them is the useful half: a change of hospital, fewer shifts, a teaching role, or the work itself. It shows which adjustments are possible short of quitting.
What do emergency physicians you know move into when they want fewer shifts?
Why ask it
Fellowships, administration, teaching, urgent care, part-time work and telemedicine all come up, and which are realistic depends on the country and the local market. Ask which of those they have seen people here take, and whether anyone came back.
What do you get from this job that you do not think another specialty would give you?
Why ask it
After the hard questions, give them room to say what is good. Putting it as a comparison pulls out something more exact than 'I love it': the variety, being useful to whoever walks in, the people who work nights. If nothing comes to mind quickly, that is information too.
Deciding
Which other specialties were you weighing, and what tipped it toward emergency medicine?
Why ask it
The runner-up tells you what they wanted and what they gave up. Someone who nearly chose surgery or critical care was after different things from someone who nearly chose family medicine. If your own shortlist overlaps with theirs, ask what they would say to you.
Who thrives in emergency medicine, and who ends up unhappy in it?
Why ask it
The second half is the one to press on. Needing closure, disliking interruption and wanting long relationships with patients are traits that may come up, but hear their version first. If they know you well enough, ask which of those they see in you.
What did you believe about this specialty as a student that turned out to be wrong?
Why ask it
It hands them permission to correct the picture you probably hold. Corrections tend to concern the pace, how much trauma there is and how much of the work is conversation. Write the answer down and test it on the next shift you watch.
What should I watch for on a shift to tell whether this suits me?
Why ask it
Ask for something observable. They may suggest noticing how you feel in the seventh hour, or in front of the tenth person with the same complaint, instead of during the one dramatic case. Then do exactly that and tell them afterwards what you noticed.
How ready did you feel on your first shift as the doctor in charge, and what had training left out?
Why ask it
Nobody forgets that shift, so you will get a story. The gaps people name are seldom clinical: keeping a whole department moving, standing firm with a senior consultant, deciding with nobody to check with. How long training lasts and how much independence it builds in differ by country, so ask where they trained.
What is the job market like for new emergency physicians around here?
Why ask it
Treat the answer as a local reading for this year, not a forecast for when you finish training. Ask what they have seen firsthand: whether recent graduates got jobs where they wanted them, and whether the openings are in cities or in smaller towns. A resident close to graduating will have a fresher view, so ask one too.
What would you check before accepting a first job out of training?
Why ask it
A doctor who has changed jobs will have a list, often about who owns the group, how many patients an hour are expected and how many doctors are on at night. Pay and contract terms depend on the employer and the place, so ask what is normal there instead of carrying a figure away with you.
Is a fellowship worth doing, and which would you choose now?
Why ask it
Which subspecialty routes exist, and whether they change what you are paid or where you can work, depends on the country and the training system. Ask what is open to graduates there. What they would pick today often reveals what they find missing in general shifts.
What would you be doing at my stage if you wanted to end up in emergency medicine?
Why ask it
Say what your stage is first, because the answer for a premed and the answer for a student a year from applying have little in common. Push for one concrete thing over a list: a job that puts you inside a department, a rotation to request, a person to meet. Advice about applications dates quickly, so put the same question to someone who went through it in the last couple of years.
If you were a student choosing today, would you still pick emergency medicine?
Why ask it
Leave this until near the end. Listen to the conditions attached, such as 'yes, at a place like this' or 'yes, if I could go part-time sooner', because those conditions are the advice.
Who else should I talk to: someone newer, someone further along, someone who left?
Why ask it
One physician is one view from one department. A name and an introduction from them gets you a second conversation far more easily than a cold email. Ask it last, and thank them before you go.
How to talk with an emergency physician about the specialty
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Choosing the moment
On a shift, ask in the gaps
The doctor you are following is holding several patients in their head. The safe moments are when they sit down to chart, wait on a result or walk back from a room. Ask one question, not three, and if they are called away mid-answer let it go unless they pick it up again. Anything under Lasting or Deciding is better kept for a slow hour or the end of the shift.
Over coffee, begin with their last shift
A sit-down career conversation has the opposite problem: plenty of time and nothing in front of you. Start with a question from The shift or Cases about the most recent day they worked. It gives both of you something real to refer back to when you reach the hours and the long-term questions.
Say where you are in training
A premed deciding whether medicine is right, a first-year with every specialty open and a student about to apply need different answers. One sentence about your stage lets the physician pitch the reply, and spares you both a detailed account of an application process you are years away from.
Ask where nobody can overhear
Many emergency departments have curtains for walls and beds in the hallway. A question about boarding, a difficult consultant or the worst part of the job gets a straight answer in the break room and a careful one at the desk. Wherever you are, ask about patterns and kinds of case, never about the person in room four, and write down nothing that could identify a patient. If the hospital gave you rules for observers, those come before anything on this page.
Making sense of what you hear
Separate the specialty from the building
Boarding, staffing levels, who the employer is and which numbers are tracked belong to one hospital at one point in time. Undifferentiated patients, constant interruption, shift work and handing people off belong to emergency medicine wherever it is practiced. When something sounds bad, ask 'would that be different somewhere else?' before you hold it against the specialty.
Weigh the ordinary shift
The cases that drew you in are a small part of the working week. The questions under The shift are there to get the plain version: the mix of complaints, the charting, the waiting. If the plain version still sounds like work you would want, that counts for more than any single dramatic story.
Account for who is talking and when
Someone three years out of training and someone twenty years in are describing different jobs, and anyone answering at the end of a run of nights is tired. Note the stage and the hour next to the answer. A view that sounds bleak at seven in the morning may sound different after a day off.
Notice your own reaction
While they describe not knowing the diagnosis, never seeing the follow-up or working the holiday, check how it lands with you. Relief, curiosity and dread are all data. The point of the conversation is less to rate the specialty than to find out how you fit it.
What to do with it afterwards
Come back at a different hour
A weekday morning and a Saturday night can feel like two different departments: other patients, other staffing, another mood. If a second visit is possible, ask the physician which shift would show you what the first one hid, and whether observers are allowed on it.
See a second kind of department
If your first conversation was at a large teaching hospital, look for time at a community or rural emergency department, or the reverse. The answers about procedures, consultants and backup overnight change more with the setting than with the doctor.
Put the Lasting questions to three people
A doctor still in training will tell you about the training and the current job search. A physician who moved into administration, a fellowship or another line of work will tell you why. Add a nurse who has watched doctors come and go in that department, and you have a range instead of one opinion.
Try the work for longer than a day
Where they exist, roles such as scribe, department volunteer or ambulance crew put you near the work for months, long enough for the novelty to wear off. Which of them are open to someone at your stage depends on the country and the hospital, so ask the physician what students there have done and whether it helped them decide.
What spoils the conversation
Going after the grisliest story
It is the question emergency physicians get at parties, and it asks them to perform a painful memory for a stranger. The versions here, about the last case that taught them something or what they do after a bad shift, get a truer picture and leave them free to say as much as they want.
Asking whether it is like television
Most emergency physicians have been asked more than once, and the answer is a tired no. If what you want to know is how much of the work is dramatic, ask how much of what comes through the door is a true emergency. That gets you a proportion and a list of complaints, and no eye-roll.
Writing off a slow shift
A shift with no resuscitation can feel like bad luck to a student. It is the ordinary job, and it is also when the physician has time to answer at length, so use it for the Hours and Lasting questions that would never fit into a busy night. Just do not remark on how quiet it is: in plenty of departments that word is thought to bring the ambulances.
Leading with the salary question
Income is a fair thing to wonder about, and it depends heavily on country, region and employer. Asked first, it colors everything after it. Asked late, as part of what to check in a first job, it tends to get a fuller and more useful reply.
Taking one tired doctor as the verdict
A single discouraging conversation, or a single glowing one, is a small sample. Hold off deciding until you have heard from people at different stages and in different departments.