About the Department of Emergency Medicine
Los Angeles General Medical Center is one of the most technologically advanced hospitals in the United States, and the emergency department, with over 120 monitored beds, is its centerpiece.
The Department of Emergency Medicine is an autonomous clinical and academic department within the Los Angeles General Medical Center and Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California. It has the responsibility for initial triage, evaluation and management of up to 500 patients daily, including a complete spectrum of adult and pediatric medical and surgical conditions.
The patients served at the Los Angeles General Medical Center come from a varied ethnic background, a substantial working class population and a large number of indigent patients. Since the County hospital is tasked with providing care for all those who cannot afford it elsewhere, the mean socioeconomic level tends to be low with the attendant problems of chronic poor health maintenance, difficult access to health care and lack of support systems. Superimposed on this demography is a high incidence of gang and drug related violence and vehicular injury, which leads to a large volume of both penetrating and blunt major and minor trauma.
The Department of Emergency Medicine is also responsible for an active Paramedic Base Station, the Hyperbaric Treatment Chamber on Catalina Island, the Center for Life Support Training and Research, the Emergency Evaluation Area of the Los Angeles County Jail Service and a 15 bed Observation Unit.
Facts & Figures
- Provides more than 28 percent of all trauma care in Los Angeles County.
- A large residency program established in 1971 with 72 trainees
- More than 600 physicians have graduated from the residency program
- The largest alumni body of emergency medicine specialists both in the United States and internationally.
