Abstract
Historic backgrounds, current status (including legislations, statistics, system organizations, involvement of co-medicals, work life balance and female workforce, and hospital managements) and issues facing Emergency Medicine in US are reviewed and made comparison with emerging Emergency Medicine (the US model/style Emergency Medicine also known as“ER style EM”in Japan) in Japan. In US, EM was born in 1960's, then the Residency and the Specialty Board were established. Further organization resulted in roughly 40,000 Emergency Physicians and the nation's Emergency Departments functioning as society's safety net. Reasons for its success are not only because the model they had was based on the society's demand but also because they are able to make their work very sustainable and able to give opportunities for education and research. In Japan, the US model EM was born in 1990s, and emerging. But, the number of Emergency Physicians are still quite few and their work frequently involves inpatient care as well. Interestingly, there is a trend in Europe to adapt the US model EM as well. It appears that it makes sense to have the US model EM to better cope with highly developed urban society's Emergency Care needs. As we review the development of EM in US, it is clear that standardization of Emergency Physicians' quality and sustainable workforce with reasonable work life balance are crucial factors in further development of the US model EM in Japan.
