A Day - or 5 Years - in the Life of an Urban Emergency Medicine Physician

Indianapolis, IN

With its high population density, an urban environment tends to track an abundant variety of complaints in an emergency room. The cases seen by this provider present a unique opportunity to provide data for this predominately African American population. 18,300 patients in a retrospective study of the chief complaints and diagnoses at 3 different Detroit emergency departments were analyzed to identify the trends in chief complaints over a five year period (from 1-Oct-11 to 30-Sep-16) of being an emergency medicine attending. Data from physician-recorded sheets was transcribed to view each patient’s identifier number, demographics, whether a resident was present or not, and chief complaints. The 5 most common chief complaints included chest pain at 4.1%, abdominal pain at 2.6%, ETOH at 1.5%, seizures at 1.3% and back pain at 1.2%. 64% of patients were seen in conjunction with a resident and 54% of patients were female.To identify trends consistent throughout the study period, the average number of patients seen per day, per week, and per month were analyzed as well. February and October were identified as months with the least number of patients seen, with the average number of patients seen per day being 21.5 and 15.1 respectively; moreover, months from July to September exhibited an overall increase in the number of patients seen.