An emergency room physician works at a hospital’s emergency ward, treating patients for various life-threatening or otherwise serious conditions. Various types of conditions are treated at an emergency ward, from severe infections to illnesses that pose a risk to a patient’s life. Emergency room physicians normally operate by first evaluating incoming patients in order to determine whether they require emergency treatment in the first place – and in cases where they do, the patient is sent to the appropriate section of the emergency ward to receive immediate treatment.
To become an emergency room physician, one needs to undergo specialized training related to the specifics of the profession. It begins with a standard 4-year medical education, after which the candidate must go through a specialized program. The length of the training varies slightly around the world, though it’s most commonly around 3 years. Some jurisdictions offer shorter courses of about 2 years, too, though this varies a lot from place to place and a candidate must usually perform some research to make sure.
Emergency room physicians are somewhere in the middle of the payscale with regards to physicians in general. The annual salary goes between $145,000 – $278,000, and the median for 2009 was $214,000. The job has some great prospects for further career development too, though many ER physicians prefer to retain their jobs instead of moving towards others, as the satisfaction rate for them is very high (as indicated by some recent studies conducted in several places).