A few years back, I embarked on a journalistic journey, chronicling the lives of several intrepid physicians who’d traded their scrubs and stethoscopes between the United States and far-flung locales like Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, and even the cradle of humanity, Ethiopia. These weren’t just travelogues; they were glimpses into the diverse tapestry of global health care, each thread woven with different financing models and delivery systems. But those four stories, as compelling as they were, merely scratched the surface. The world of medicine, and particularly the high-octane realm of emergency medicine, pulsates with a myriad of approaches, each shaped by unique cultural, economic, and geographical forces.

Recently, my intellectual curiosity was piqued by the ACEP ambassador program—a brilliant initiative fostering a vital exchange of knowledge and experience through the participation of international colleagues in fostering the development of emergency medicine around the world.¹ Ambassadors cross-pollinate ideas, sharing triumphs and tribulations whispered across continents!

The findings of a recent article in JACEP Open shed a revealing light on this global landscape.² These researchers interviewed ambassadors from a staggering 69 out of 77 countries. A resounding 91 percent (that’s 63 out of 69 nations, for those keeping score at home) officially recognize emergency medicine as the distinct, high-stakes specialty it is.

Think about that for a moment. We’ve clawed our way from the nascent days of 1962, when Ireland bravely stood alone as the first nation to acknowledge our tribe as independent within the vast House of Medicine. The U.K. and the U.S. followed suit a decade later in 1972, and a steady drumbeat of progress has echoed across the globe, culminating in El Salvador’s recent embrace of our critical field. Today, an astounding five out of every six countries interviewed boast a national society dedicated to emergency medicine, a testament to our growing global solidarity. And mirroring that impressive statistic, approximately 87 percent have established residency training programs within their borders, nurturing the next generation of frontline heroes. Our specialty isn’t just expanding, it’s exploding, poised to equip more and more dedicated individuals to tackle the unpredictable onslaught of acute, unscheduled care that walks, wheels, or sometimes flies through our doors.

Interestingly, the vast majority—a hefty 83 percent—adhere to the Anglo-American emergency medical system, the very model we know (and sometimes love to critique) here in the United States. The remaining nations operate under a Franco-German model, a system in which the physician, the ultimate decision-maker, races directly to the scene of the emergency, a stark contrast to our more tiered approach. On the surface, it might seem like our way of handling the chaotic dance of emergencies is representative of a significant chunk of the planet. Indeed, the authors of this insightful study estimate the countries responding to their survey encompass a staggering 6 billion souls—roughly three-quarters of humanity.