Does learning emergency medicine equip medical students for ward emergencies?

The aim of this study was to assess the competence of senior medical students in recognizing and managing life-threatening ward emergencies and to compare the competence of a group that had received emergency medicine teaching with one that had not. This was achieved by asking 60 final year medical students to complete a structured written clinical examination designed to test these skills. Comparisons were made between the group that had received emergency medicine teaching (the 'taught' group) and that which had not (the 'untaught' group) with respect to numerical scores on the examination and the number of fatal management errors committed. The 'taught' group had an average total score of 285/400 compared with an average score of 223/400 for the 'untaught' group (P < 0.001). The 'untaught' group committed 0.25 fatal errors per student per case compared with the 'taught' group that committed 0.06 fatal errors per student per case (P < 0.001). There is considerable scope to improve the competence of senior medical students for dealing with life-threatening ward emergencies. Students who had received emergency medicine teaching scored significantly better than those who had not suggesting that emergency medicine teaching is a suitable tool to help equip medical students to deal with life threatening ward emergencies.