Orange Park Emergency Medicine has pushed hard to finish the year strong after a challenging season filled with new hurdles every week. We’ve found that the most important thing to remember in overcoming challenges is that having strong teammates and colleagues to work with and lean on is the most valuable asset in medicine. As such, we’re lucky to have added some really strong attending staff over the past few months as Dr. Cobau and Dr. Mantha joined our ED team. We’d also like to congratulate our very own Dr. Jennifer Chapman for transitioning to her role as Program Director, as well as to Dr. Shilpa Amin, who will be serving as Associate Program Director.

To help us learn the artwork of becoming an efficient ED, our program has added a unique shift for PGY-2 residents nicknamed the “pretending shift,” where we focus on managing the flow of the entire emergency department rather than just our panel of patients. Our ED has also experimented with different tracks to help move the ever-changing influx of patients through our ED in a timely and safe manner, including having a “fast track”/low-acuity area primarily staffed by PAs/NPs while residents attend to high-acuity patients and focus more on critical patients, procedures and resuscitations.

From an academic standpoint, our program was excited to have multiple projects spearheaded by Dr. Warrington accepted at the International Meeting on Simulation in Healthcare, giving multiple faculty members and residents the chance to present on an international stage. We have continued our virtual rotation for medical students struggling to get time in the ED due to COVID, which has been a big success thus far. We are also finishing up our virtual interview season and are excited about what next year will bring as we add our third 12-resident class to our Orange Park family. We’d also like to give a big shout out to the dynamic and brilliant Dr. Koury, who won a “Best Presenter” award for his CPC competition recently with Dr. Fry. Lastly, outside of the ER, our residents have continued to pursue areas of interest such as working with the sports medicine team at the Florida Ironman and participating in training events with Jacksonville’s Search and Rescue Teams.

All in all, 2020 brought us closer together as a team, and we’re excited for whatever 2021 brings our way at Orange Park Medical Center. ■