Department of
Emergency Medicine

Clinical Experience

Fellows will meet their ACGME required specialty skill maintenance by working shifts in the emergency departments of rural critical access hospitals.  They will be paired with an EMS agency serving those critical access facilities as the agency’s assistant medical director.  This will provide them with vital experience not only observing the EMS providers in the field but also actually receiving patients from them at the emergency department.

EMS Experiences

To promote skill proficiency, the fellows will have the opportunity to practice in a wide variety of settings, with an emphasis on the rural environment.  WVU’s EMS Fellowship also offers the following unique experiences:

  • Event Medicine: Fellows will serve the urban-university community of Morgantown, WV.  In this environment, our program provides event medicine coverage for all the WVU athletic departments and major events that occur statewide.  Event medicine experience ranges from WVU home football games at a 60,000-capacity stadium to downhill mountain bike races or ski events at our local ski resorts. 
  • WVU MEDCOM is one of five medical command facilities in the state. It covers all of the north central and eastern panhandle regions of the state.  Last year MEDCOM recorded over 84,000 medical command physician (MCP) interactions with prehospital providers.  During this experience, fellows will provide oversite of this center, taking MCP call coverage for interfacility transports to WVU’s adult and pediatric centers.
  • Fellows interested in and qualifying for air medical experience will have the opportunity to participate with HealthNet-one of West Virginia’s premier flight programs in which WVU is part of the consortium ownership. HealthNet operates 10 aircraft from 8 bases throughout the state and completes over 5,000 missions per year.  By the end of 2025, 50% of the fleet will be less than 6 months old and all are twin engine helicopters.  The WVU specific aircraft also offer our fellows specialty team experience through our WVU Children’s transport team and our ECMO team, both operate using air and ground vehicles.  HealthNet’s ground operations HealthTeam, has 7 base sites and includes our WVU Children’s vehicle, together they complete about 25,000 transports annually. 
  • Fellows who do not desire the flight experience will still gain vital exposure to the air medical environment participating in flight team training, utilizing their state-of-the-art flight simulator.    In addition to this simulation experience, fellows will provide flight medical command coverage, during their MEDCOM experience, giving them a well-rounded experience in flight medicine.
  • There are also many options for elective experiences as well. WVU’s Division of Prehospital Medicine has significant collaborative relationships/participation with wilderness medicine programs, tactical EMS agencies, palliative care/hospice, WVU’s forensic program, and our department’s other fellowships including medical education/administration, sports medicine, and ultrasound.