What does your program offer that residents can’t get anywhere else?

Our program’s primary teaching site, University Medical Center (UMC) of Southern Nevada, is a high-volume tertiary care county facility, the largest civilian site for military training in the US, and the only Level 1 Trauma Center in the entire state—it serves as a safety net for a diverse and under-served patient population, in addition to more than 40 million tourists who visit Las Vegas each year. Our training program embraces early resident involvement with critically-ill patients, beginning with the very first ED shift as a PGY1 (although we start in the deep-end of the pool, we have ‘floaties’ on with tons of support and there’s always a high level of supervision by our passionate and dedicated faculty). The program has a big focus on developing resuscitationists and team leaders—in addition to the large number of high-acuity patients we manage in the ED, our clinical curriculum includes five ICU rotations. We are one of four civilian EM programs with a significant Air Force affiliation—our civilian-military partnership affords numerous training and mentorship opportunities and ensures that our graduates are well-prepared to succeed in any practice location: academic, community, rural, military deployment, and highly austere environments.

UMC has the only ‘free-standing’ trauma center west of the Mississippi River—a separate Trauma Resuscitation Emergency Department with 11 resuscitation bays along with its own dedicated CT scanner and interventional radiology suite. With a census of more than 10,600 trauma patients last year (and a 38 percent admit rate with 27 percent ICU admissions), our residents gain extensive experience and comfort managing a complex and highly-traumatized patient population with varying multi-system injury mechanisms, including high-speed motor vehicle collisions and rollovers, motorcycle and all-terrain vehicle collisions, blunt sports-related injuries involving professionals and amateurs, professional boxers and mixed martial arts fighters, assault victims, rodeo riders, and falls from varying heights.

The program is very receptive to resident feedback, and embraces resident input and empowerment to effect change in the clinical and didactic curricula. Our residents share a very strong sense of camaraderie and mutual support of one another, and we consider ourselves a big family.

What are some fun activities residents like to partake in or recently participated in?

Aside from top-notch training, our residents have a strong work-life balance and enjoy the numerous opportunities found only in Las Vegas. The entertainment available out here is never-ending: from concerts and music festivals comprised of renowned artists in every musical genre, to critically-acclaimed shows and performances of all kinds. Professional sports have taken off in Las Vegas in recent years with teams such as the NFL Raiders, WNBA Aces (2-time champions), NHL Golden Knights (2023 Stanley Cup winners), the Aviators, Formula 1 racing … and a Major League Baseball team (the Oakland Athletics) will be relocating here soon. Our pre-hospital and event medicine involvement creates outstanding opportunities for residents to participate and provide on-site medical coverage alongside attendings at mass-gathering events such as the Superbowl, the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Allegiant Stadium events (concerts, Raiders games, UNLV football games), Golden Knights games, frequent music festivals (including the Electric Daisy Carnival, one of the world’s largest EDM festivals), the Rock ‘n’ Roll marathon, and the National Finals Rodeo championships, just to name a few.