Wellspan York Hospital

Twitter: @WellSpanYHEMRes
Location: York, Pennsylvania
Year founded: 1989
Number of residents/program length: 12 per class/three-year program

Secret weapons (medical)

Our community academic residency program is the best of both worlds. Our residents receive stellar clinical training in our emergency department, which sees approximately 86,000 adult and pediatric visits annually. York hospital is a tertiary care center, comprehensive stroke center,  and certified chest pain center, and even performs ED extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. As a community academic program, our residents have a large amount of patient autonomy and are not just competent in procedures, but confident as well. We have a plethora of academic resources including global health, wilderness medicine, toxicology, disaster medicine, critical care, EMS, forensics, research, simulation, education, and ultrasound opportunities. We have experts in all of these specialized areas, so residents learn from the best. Our 270-plus graduates are practicing nationwide in 45 states, in a multitude of settings including fellowships and rural-, community-, and university-based emergency departments.

Secret weapons (non-medical)

Living in York is very cost effective and comfortable. Downtown York offers many diverse dining options, and has a local baseball stadium and a theatre. There are many lakes, parks, and trails throughout York County, if you enjoy outdoor activities. York county is located in the middle of everything. By car, it is approximately four hours from Pittsburgh, three hours from New York City, 1.5–2 hours from Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia, and 45 minutes from Baltimore. Amtrak in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, is conveniently located 30 minutes away.

Recent publication of note

Becker BA, Lahham S, Gonzales MA, et al. A prospective, multicenter evaluation of point-of-care ultrasound for small-bowel obstruction in the emergency department. Acad Emerg Med. 2019;26(8):921-930.

This was a multicenter, prospective, observational study examining the diagnostic accuracy of point-of-care (POC) ultrasound (US) for small bowel obstruction (SBO) in the emergency department. The study was initiated at Wellspan York Hospital, but also enrolled subjects at the University of California, Irvine, and Christiana Hospital in Wilmington, Delaware. Multiple attendings, emergency ultrasound fellows, and residents were involved in enrolling subjects and performing the ultrasounds. POC sonographer interpretation of the US for SBO, as well as blinded overread of the POC US images by the site ultrasound director, were compared to abdominal CT as the criterion standard. The results suggest that POC US for SBO is fairly sensitive in the hands of the general operator, but was considerably more specific when interpreted by individuals with more experience with US for SBO.

—Amber Billet, MD, FACEP, program director, emergency medicine residency