The last few months have been a time of extraordinary growth for our program. Not only did we expand as a residency by welcoming our second class into the ED, but we are also in the process of literally expanding our hospital as we near the completion of a three-story addition to increase our available inpatient bed space. We have also begun rotating our residents at a third ED for our program at Normandy Park ER, giving our residents another environment to learn and train.

In the research realm, we are working towards multiple industry grants as well as continuing our multi-disciplinary research in collaboration with our dermatology residency. Our second-year class has begun putting in the groundwork on some other exciting projects involving our local EMS agency and point-of-care ultrasound. Other academic updates include our program competing in our first FCEP Case Presentation Competition. Dr. McKeny and myself came home empty-handed, but our program livestreamed all the presentations, learned a ton, and became even more eager for a chance at the title next year.

Similarly to all programs, we’ve tried to adapt to the times. We’ve been offering a “virtual rotation,” allowing medical students to stream into our Thursday conference and get more involved with our residents each week. Dr. Fry and Dr. Descallar have led this initiative to assist medical students struggling to arrange rotations due to COVID as an additional opportunity to stay involved in the EM community. We have also begun working with our partner medical school, Mercer College of Medicine, and will be hosting a simulation day at their campus giving medical students a chance to have some hands-on scanning time, learning basic bedside ultrasound skills with our ultrasound guru, Dr. Euwema.

To take a break from it all, we are getting together as a program with all our residents and family members to go to a socially-distanced Jacksonville Jaguars game together, where we will see our very own Dr. Deaton on the sidelines as the airway physician for the Jaguars. Our residency has also encouraged adventurous elective rotations to get away, including a wilderness medicine elective recently completed by Dr. VanderVelde and Dr. Lofran, which involved them rappelling from large downtown buildings with our local EMS and search & rescue colleagues.

In summary: it’s been a rather exciting year of growth at Orange Park Medical Center. ■