Emergency Medicine Residency Program

Cooper University Hospital (CUH) offers a three-year training program to prepare physicians for the practice of emergency medicine. CUH’s ED has an annual census of approximately 56,000 patients, of which 26% are pediatric patients. Cooper’s patient population offers a tremendous amount of cultural diversity during the residency. Over 20% of ED patients are triaged as a level 1 or 2 and approximately 25% are admitted to the hospital, making the CUH ED acuity high relative to other sites. Due to increasing visits, CUH needed to expand its patient care facilities to meet increasing demand. Phase 1 of a 42 bed state-of-the-art ED has recently been completed.  Upon completion of the ED in the Spring of 2010, the ED will be comprised of a 23 bed adult ED, 9 bed fast track, and 8 bed pediatric ED.

Residents gain the basic skills and knowledge that are the foundation of emergency medicine (EM) through an established curriculum with progressive, graduated responsibility. They learn to recognize and respond to the acutely ill and injured patient while developing mature clinical judgment and the technical skills necessary for the provision of emergency medical care. The clinical and didactic experience coupled with close faculty mentoring provides each resident the training required to become outstanding EM physicians and academicians. Cooper EM graduates have been highly competitive and successful in both the community and academic setting. Many graduates have completed EM fellowships (pediatric EM, ultrasound, toxicology, sports medicine, and shock research) and currently hold academic EM positions.

Cooper University Hospital is a Level I Trauma Center, serving a population of 2 million in South Jersey. With over 2,200 trauma visits annually, Cooper has the busiest Level one trauma center in the state. These statistics do not include the trauma patients triaged to the ED, many of which have significant traumatic injuries.

In addition to the clinical experience in the Cooper Hospital Emergency Department, residents spend four months in the Emergency Department at Virtua Memorial Hospital of Burlington County during their second and third years. This busy, high-acuity community hospital ED (over 60,000 visits annually) staffed with all boardcertified EM physicians, is an outstanding complement to the residents’ training at Cooper University Hospital. In this rotation, the residents see both adults and pediatric patients presenting with a wide variety of suburban injuries/illnesses.

A unique focus at Cooper is our Pediatric Emergency Medicine Division, which has strong administrative support for high-quality emergency care and resident education. Twenty percent of our EM curriculum is focused on pediatric emergency medicine, taught by our own pediatric EM faculty. Rotations in the Pediatric Emergency Department and Pediatric ICU provide a superb foundation in the evaluation and treatment of children in the Emergency Department. You will graduate from Cooper’s program competent and comfortable seeing sick children of all ages.

Another major strength at Cooper is our comprehensive training in bedside ultrasound. Extensive hands-on experience with our two brand-new machines coupled with the formal didactic curriculum provides each resident with an outstanding foundation in EM ultrasound. Ultrasound training begins immediately for all incoming residents. All faculty are trained in the performance of bedside sonography and we perform and interpret all of our own sonographic studies. Ultrasound is used for an unlimited variety of clinical and procedural applications, and the graduating residents are proficient in the performance of emergency bedside ultrasound.

In addition to the pediatric EM and ultrasound experience, residents gain outstanding critical care exposure while rotating on the trauma and medical intensive care services. Cooper’s critical care and EM faculty consists of several international leaders in critical care, many of which have significant research interest in the early treatment of shock. Cooper also has EM faculty, specializing in toxicology and EMS/disaster medicine to provide residents with the most comprehensive EM training experience possible.

Twenty EM boarded emergency faculty provide resident education and supervision at Cooper University Hospital. All fourth year medical students from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School at Camden rotate through the ED. Interested fourth year students from outside institutions are encouraged to rotate through our ED. EM residents actively participate in the undergraduate medical education program.

There are five weekly hours of conference time for EM residents. The core curriculum is taught over an 18-month period in monthly modules. Each module is devoted to a core content area, e.g. trauma, critical care or infectious disease.

All lectures, procedure labs, ultrasound instruction and radiology conference are geared towards providing a case-based, hands-on learning experience within a single core content area. A monthly take home module exam, directed reading lists and active faculty involvement ensures the resident acquires the necessary skills and knowledge. Residents are protected from their clinical duties in the Emergency Department during conferences. The majority of the curriculum is taught by EM faculty.

To supplement the core curriculum, there is a weekly ECG conference or interesting case conference and a simulation lab. Residents are encouraged to participate in the clinical research activities of the department. Core research faculty oversee departmental, resident, and student projects with the assistance of a full-time nurse coordinator. The residents have an additional four weeks of elective time during their senior year. Electives include advanced ultrasound, toxicology, administration, international activities, pediatric emergency medicine, and critical care.

There is an institutional focus on critical care, with the creation of a multidisciplinary team of emergency medicine, medical and surgical critical care staff who oversee the care of critically ill and injured patients. The faculty include an EM/IM/critical care faculty member who oversees the implementation of collaborative patient care and research protocols in the Emergency Department. This is supplemented by the E.M. Shock Fellowship which is specifically designed for EM graduates.

CLICK HERE to view and print the complete Emergency Medicine residency brochure

Contact Information

Graceann Endicott
Manager of Medical Education
Emergency Medicine Residency Program
Cooper University Hospital
One Cooper Plaza
Camden, New Jersey 08103
E-mail: endicott-grace@cooperhealth.edu
Phone: (856) 342-2351

Students may obtain information to schedule an elective by calling the Registrar’s Office at (856) 757-7859.