Starting Anew: Returning to the Pediatric Emergency Department as the First and Only Trained Pediatric Emergency Medicine Specialist

Formal pediatric emergency medicine training did not exist in Australia in the late 1980s, so I ventured overseas to gain experience and knowledge from the then leaders in the field. I completed my fellowship and returned to an emergency department (ED) in Australia as the only pediatric emergency medicine–trained attending. This article describes my experiences in transforming an ED run solely by residents into one with now 14 full-time consultants and our own fellows. Imbedded in this story is the experience of one of our first fellows who came from Switzerland, where even emergency medicine was not yet a recognized specialty. On his return home, he too transformed his ED.