Danielle Jimenez

A mother turned her son's gunshot trauma into advocacy for gun control.

Each Fall, a group of Michigan Medicine students, residents, fellows, and faculty trade scrubs for backpacks, caves, and rain-soaked trails as part of a four-week wilderness medicine course led by the Department of Emergency Medicine. The month blends lectures on wilderness medicine with hands-on, real-world scenarios in some of the region’s most rugged environments.

At 12 emergency departments, researchers followed 114 children, ages 4 to 17, with femur fractures. They compared pain medication, like opioids, with ultrasound-guided nerve blocks — injections of long-acting local anesthetic. The University of Michigan led the way with the most enrollees in the study.

From physician mental health to rising patient volumes and funding cuts, every year Michigan Medicine faculty and trainees join the national conversation at the American College of Emergency Physicians’ (ACEP) annual Leadership and Advocacy Conference in Washington, D.C.

The Department of Emergency Medicine is proud to welcome an accomplished and inspiring group of new faculty members to Michigan Medicine. Each brings unique expertise, fresh energy, and a passion for advancing emergency care, research, and education. From clinical innovation to creative pursuits outside the hospital, their stories highlight the diverse talent shaping the department’s future.

The Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Michigan welcomed clinicians, educators, researchers, administrators, patients, and advocates from around the world for the Diagnostic Excellence 2025 (DEX25) meeting, held October 27–29 at the Michigan League in Ann Arbor. This three-day gathering focused on advancing the safety and accuracy of clinical diagnosis through science, education, and collaboration.

Dozens of middle schoolers from underserved communities visited the University of Michigan Transportation research Institute’s (UMTRI) MCity test facility to explore hands-on lessons in science and safety.

When a University of Michigan lacrosse player walked into an urgent care clinic with bruises on his legs and vision changes, a rare procedure available at Michigan Medicine saved his life.

On October 14, Michigan Medicine’s Department of Emergency Medicine and the Samuel and Jean Frankel Cardiovascular Center, with support from the Max Harry Weil Institute for Critical Care Research and Innovation, hosted the first-ever Cardiac Arrest Survivor Celebration Dinner. Survivors gathered with the very people who once fought to keep them alive, in a night that honored not only patients who beat the odds, but also the many hands that made their recoveries possible.

In 2022, the Emergency Department launched its sepsis team, which partners with sepsis teams across the hospital to strengthen recognition and care. Nowhere have improvements been greater than in the Adult Emergency Department. Innovations such as nurse-initiated sepsis screening, electronic medical record alerts, and “sepsis huddles” have improved communications and bundle compliance for patients with severe sepsis and septic shock. Since 2020, these efforts have reduced mortality by 6.5% — an estimated 393 lives saved.

If you’ve ever waited in an emergency department, you know it can be stressful and long. At Michigan Medicine’s Adult Emergency Services (AES), teams are working to improve comfort, communication, bedside technology, and, ultimately, reduce wait times.

Every second counts during a prolonged seizure. Known as status epilepticus, these seizures won’t stop on their own, and if not treated fast, they can lead to brain damage, ICU stays, or death. Michigan Medicine is now leading a major clinical trial that could change how these patients are treated in the emergency department. The study, called KESETT (Ketamine add-on therapy for Established Status Epilepticus Treatment Trial), funded by the NIH, will test whether adding ketamine to current treatments can stop seizures more effectively.

In the late 1980s, Michigan Medicine’s pediatric emergency care was more like a walk-in clinic tucked in a corner of the adult emergency department. With limited resources and space, and only two physicians trained in pediatric emergency medicine (PEM), with others moonlighting, it was a humble start fueled by a love for kids, grit, and a vision for something better.

Artificial intelligence is transforming medicine nationwide — and at the University of Michigan, the Department of Emergency Medicine is moving faster and thinking bigger. Rather than using AI as a one-off tool, the department is adopting it as a core strategy — reshaping everything from education and clinical decision-making to operations, discovery and diagnostics. It’s a vision that places emergency medicine at the forefront of AI’s role in redefining academic medicine.

Thanks to a $1.2 million Department of Defense grant, scientists in the Department of Emergency Medicine can now study cells too fragile to image previously — pushing brain injury research forward with two advanced microscopes and a state-of-the-art brain monitor.