welcome to 

carolinas emergency MEDICINE

FOR APPLICANTS

for residents

Our program at Carolinas Medical Center (CMC), part of Atrium Health, has some very unique assets that can truly help you excel on your specific path of mastery of caring for people in their time of need. One of the most important of these assets is our unique perspective and mission. At CMC, we perceive all of our residents as being leaders today: not just potentially in the future, but currently. It has been said that the defining characteristic of all leaders is courage.  Regardless of the career path a physician chooses for herself or himself, she or he will be a leader. Our mission is to promote the development of physician leaders who have the courage to care for all patients everywhere. 
 
As emergency physicians, it takes courage to direct a resuscitation, to perform emergent procedures, and to take action when uncomfortable. It also takes courage to ask why, to look for answers, and to be questioned. Most importantly, it takes courage to advocate for a patient, to hold a hand, and to protect the disenfranchised. It takes courage to set the example of how to care for others. It is with this courageous approach that all of the residents and faculty at Carolinas Medical Center care for their patients daily. 
 
During residency, every asset and aspect of our team and program is directed toward this mission. Through superior research, education, innovation, and clinical practice, we will support the development of physicians in emergency medicine who have the courage to care for their unique and diverse communities around the globe. 
 
You are welcomed to join us on this mission.
 
Sean M. Fox, MD, FACEP, FAAP 
Program Director
Professor of Emergency Medicine and Professor of Pediatrics
Carolinas Medical Center

​Welcome interested applicants! 

As the current chiefs, we wanted to take some time to introduce you to our program and highlight some of the reasons we love CMC so much. We promise this is more than just a hype letter — our hope is to provide you with a sense of what it is like to be a resident here and if it will be a good fit for you. 

Let’s start with the faculty. Long story short: we love them. Our faculty are very involved both during shift and off. As you progress through the program, your knowledge base regarding emergency medicine core content will grow exponentially. Our attendings do a great job of hammering home the basics then transitioning to challenging those core beliefs based on recent literature or how patients are being managed in the community. We have a great mix of both well-established leaders in academic emergency medicine and attendings who split their practice between academics and community. I think we’ve all found it incredibly beneficial to learn from the differing management styles of each. That being said, our attendings expect a lot from us, so be prepared to work hard both on shift and at home to keep up with those expectations. 

In addition to building and challenging our clinical skills, our faculty has our backs when it comes to academic projects. If your goal is to publish in an esteemed peer reviewed journal, we’ve got attendings who will get ridiculously giddy over the prospect of helping you accomplish that goal. What if you want a career in academics but research isn’t your thing? Maybe try out a little FOAMED by hopping on our resident-run podcast, radiology mastery series (featured on veteran FOAM site Life in the Fast Lane), or monthly ECG lectures. To put it simply, our attendings are excited to help us with whatever our resident’s heart’s desire is when it comes to furthering the field of emergency medicine. 

Another very important CMC tradition, that is at the core of who we are as a residency program, is that we are obsessed with our co-residents. We hang out a lot and we drag our significant others and dogs along for the ride. As an EM resident, you’ll work some crazy hours so we’ve adapted by making it just as acceptable to hang out on a Tuesday morning at 7am as a Saturday night at 11pm. While residency will be really challenging at times, coming together after a shift to discuss the day’s events or the latest Netflix trends can do incredible things for your state of mind. What we are trying to convey is that social bonding isn’t mandatory at this program, but it’s a huge part of who we are and we love the family we have formed! We hope that future classes keep developing the warm and fuzzies for each other. 

We could keep going for days about how much we love our program but will stop here for now. Good luck in your future pursuits and don’t hesitate to reach out to any one of our residents, chiefs included! 

Tyler, Victoria, Brian, & Chelsea 
​CMC Chief Residents, 2020-2021