The Northwestern University/Evanston residency program, entering its 31st year, is one of the oldest in the nation.

As our residency program continues to expand, we are now welcoming 10 first year positions along with two additional positions in our second year class. This recent increase from 7 residents per year marks the transition to a total of 40 residents in the program and represents a 40% increase in the number of residents we train annually. With the large increase in patient visits and a growing number of faculty members, we are excited to be able to necessarily increase our numbers of residents. This increase allows each resident more time in the Emergency Department (ED) at Northwestern Memorial Hospital (NMH) and also increases senior residents’ time supervising junior residents along with faculty members.

Medical student interest in our program remains high. Each year we regularly receive over 500 student applications and interview about 25% of that total. We continue to work to make this program one of the top emergency medicine training programs in the country. Last year we noted a shift in the type of applicant to our program. More of our applicants are looking only at the top 4-year programs in the country; thus, our competition predominately comes from fellow 4-year premier residencies across the nation, rather than from 3-year programs within the Chicago metropolitan area.

Evidence of our program’s acumen is evident in our recent visit from the national Residency Review Committee (RRC) for emergency medicine, which regularly assesses residency programs to ensure they are achieving their educational goals and meeting RRC requirements. We were honored by the Committee’s extremely favorable review. Based on its findings, our program received approval until 2007, which represents a 5-year maximum allowable span between RRC visits.

We were recently honored to host the 2003 Resident Academic Forum sponsored by the Illinois College of Emergency Physicians (ICEP) here at NMH. As the host site, we were able to showcase our residency program and the outstanding work the residents do throughout the hospital and our community. The event was so successful ICEP has invited us to host the 2004 Forum. Emergency medicine faculty member Dr. Jonathan Handler presented a lecture on EM Internet Learning during the half-day program.