Emergency Medicine in the UAE

Emergency medicine (EM) in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has gone through a number of milestones, as expected, similar to many other developed countries. It shifted from being a general practitioner-run “Emergency Room” to having state-of-the-art emergency departments with rapidly expanding residency training programs. This matured further with the establishment of the Emirates Society of Emergency Medicine, which supported the recognition of the specialty in the country and created a professional community to advance the field and make the UAE a strong regional hub of high-quality EM training. To date, the UAE has seven EM residency training programs, and the first batch of locally trained emergency physicians (EPs) graduated in 2012. The EMIRATES Framework is a conceptual framework that aims to help EM practitioners manage day-to-day emergencies while preparing to escalate for disasters. This framework is currently considered foundational in establishing the Abu Dhabi Healthcare Emergency Management ecosystem. As the specialty matures, several specialized programs are being developed in the UAE, including trauma, stroke, STEMI, and ECMO systems, with the ambitious goal of streamlining the processes of caring for patients in need, starting from prevention all the way through rehabilitation. Prehospital care and disaster medicine are similarly evolving with serious efforts to improve education and operations. Although EM is facing some challenges, the specialty is heading toward a bright future, positioning the country as a leading emergency medical care model.