"Emergency medicine is a field of practice based on the
knowledge and skills required for the prevention, diagnosis and
management of acute and urgent aspects of illness and injury
affecting patients of all age groups with a full spectrum of
episodic undifferentiated physical and behavioural disorders; it
further encompasses an understanding of the development of
pre-hospital and in-hospital emergency medical systems and the
skills necessary for this development." (As defined by the
International Federation for Emergency Medicine, 1991)
While much of the work is based in the emergency department,
emergency medicine specialists may also be involved in observation
medicine, hyperbaric medicine, toxicology, retrieval, pre-hospital
care or academic emergency medicine.