In plain English
Emergency medicine is defined by the setting rather than by an organ system or an age group: everyone who comes through the door, in any condition, in any order. The training covers resuscitation, procedures, and the decision about what happens next - admit, transfer or discharge.
Sub-specialties include pediatric emergency medicine, emergency medical services and prehospital care, medical toxicology, ultrasound and sports medicine. Urgent care is a different business, staffed by emergency physicians, family physicians, nurse practitioners and physician assistants together.
Like anaesthesia, emergency medicine is heavily contracted. National and regional staffing groups hold the emergency department contract at a large share of American hospitals, so the employer on one of these records is often the group rather than the hospital where the shifts are worked.
Training and credentials
Medical school, an emergency medicine residency of three or four years, then board certification.
Where they practise
Hospital emergency departments, freestanding emergency centres, urgent care, prehospital and air medical services.
Emergency medicine physicians on the public record
Counted from what providers file about themselves, with suppression applied before anything is counted, refreshed 2026-10-05. Names, specialties and practice locations are public; work email and phone are for signed-in customers.
| State | On record | With work email | With practice phone |
|---|---|---|---|
| California | 9,178 | 7,605 83% | 9,178 |
| Texas | 6,749 | 4,894 73% | 6,748 |
| New York | 5,784 | 4,885 84% | 5,780 |
| Florida | 5,435 | 3,990 73% | 5,433 |
| Pennsylvania | 4,439 | 3,753 85% | 4,439 |
| Illinois | 3,845 | 3,173 83% | 3,845 |
| Michigan | 3,782 | 3,217 85% | 3,782 |
| Ohio | 3,480 | 2,911 84% | 3,479 |
Closely related, and where to find them.
Closely related
- General surgeon The broad abdominal and trauma specialty, and the classification other surgery is filed against.
- Anesthesiologist Anaesthesia, pain medicine and critical care - and the care team that delivers them.
- Physician assistant A generalist-trained licensed clinician who specialises by employment, and prescribes.
Find them
- Emergency medicine physicians list counts by state, the fields a record carries, a sample record.
- Physicians physician data by specialty, state and employer.
- Emergency medicine physicians in New York, NY
- Emergency medicine physicians in Los Angeles, CA
- Emergency medicine physicians in Houston, TX
- Emergency medicine physicians in Miami, FL
- Emergency medicine physicians in Chicago, IL
- Emergency medicine physicians in Philadelphia, PA
- Certified hospitals, with emergency services flagged
Need the list, not the definition?
A free account builds this population with your own filters and shows what each record carries before anything is bought.