If you had to start over, would you be an emergency medicine physician again?  

The unfilled spots possibly because of this rhetoric. But it is actually the over saturation of new residency programs that were created by companies thats leading to this surplus. It makes sense some spots go unfilled. The total net number of er residents has still been increasing even though spots go unfilled. There will still be a greater supply/surplus than demand even though the study he is citing has since been corrected to be a more conservative projection of a surplus.

Every spot was filled after SOAP, the 500 initial unfilled spots from the first round demonstrates how undesirable the positions are.

@@JohnS-fo4jg unfortunately that simply isn’t true. There were unfilled spots from solid residencies everywhere. The most recent ACEP conference really dismantled the myth of oversupply in EM point by point. It is a multivariate equation, but it is incorrect to say that only the undesirable residencies were affected, because it was a widespread phenomena that is predicted to be worse this next cycle

Exactly

So I'm a PA-C, not a doc but have been looking at the idea of going back to med school. Given my prior work history (Stat Lab as an MT, PA in Critical Care and now Urgent Care), ER seems like something I would be suited to. If not ER, what sort of specialties do you think ER residents will be getting into as attendings should there continue to be more supply than demand?

@@jtkane317I think a lot of people who are attracted to EM are also often attracted to trauma, critical care medicine, some of them to family/sports med, and some to anesthesia. Just speaking from experience as a med student with many EM interested friends.

There is no surplus, only a maldistribution because many if not most EM physicians don’t want to practice in rural hospitals or other unpopular settings. I am retired and I still get calls and emails every day for locums coverage and other EM jobs.

Are you an ER doc rn? I’m planning to do that; will there be a job available for me in -let’s say- five years?

@@aidanduh6407 The drying job market narrative is driven by people in urban environments, just like everything else in the world. People forget that ~70 million people live in rural environments in the USA. You may have a difficult time finding a job in extremely competitive urban centers. Most Emergency departments have a hard time staffing full time as it is. It doesn't look to improve in the next 5 years (at least in my locale). You will definitely be able to find a job. You can either live in a desirable place and get paid like 250k with high taxes and cost of living, or live in a less desirable (to most) area and get paid like 400k with low taxes and low cost of living, or anywhere in between. But you will be able to find a job. Just be damn sure you actually want to do it. I think the only thing I would have rather done perhaps is anesthesiology. A nocturnist position for anesthesiology seems like a nice gig. Even then, the grass is always greener.

@@aidanduh6407 and I didn't answer your first question. Yes I am.