carolinas  Emergency  MEDICINE
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
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Class of 2022
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Class of 2023
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Class of 2024
​Welcome interested applicants! 

As the current chiefs, we wanted to write to you directly, and highlight some of the reasons why we love CMC so much. This is for sure a hype letter, but our hope is also to provide you with a sense of what it is like to be a resident here and help you determine if it will be a good fit for you. 

It cannot be overstated enough, what makes Carolinas so special is the people. From the residents we select to the faculty that teach us and to the nurses and techs at the bedside with us, the people at CMC are why we love this program. Let’s start with the faculty. Without a doubt, we have some of the most talented physicians in the field working to teach us cutting edge emergency medicine day in and day out. Multiple faculty have been nationally recognized by ACEP for their excellence in teaching, and they are each advancing the field in their own way. We have a great mix of both well-established leaders in academic emergency medicine and attendings who split their practice between academics and community, giving both truly robust and pragmatic styles of learning. 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, whatever your goal is, there is a person here who can get you there. 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 FOAMED site Life in the Fast Lane), or our monthly ECG lectures and cases featured on Dr. Smith's ECG Blog. 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. 

But this experience in your life is going to be truly defined by your colleagues, and so for us, we know that it is incredibly important to carry on the CMC tradition of forming those bonds with your fellow co-residents. We want to be able to get crushed with patients and simultaneously have a good time. The residents here at CMC, are exactly those people. 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 for us we hang out on a Tuesday morning at 7am just as much as a Saturday night at 11. While residency can be incredibly challenging at times, coming together after a shift to discuss the day’s events or the latest Netflix trends or the newest restaurant you just checked out can do incredible things for your state of mind. We honestly do it all the time. What we are trying to convey is that social bonding is a huge part of who we are and we love the family we have formed! We hope that future classes keep this tradition going!

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! 


Clare, Mark, Travis, Matt 
​CMC Chief Residents, 2021-2022