Research in urgent and emergency medicine

Abstract

Health research is consubstantial with clinical excellence, a fact that is also inherent in urgency and emergency medicine (UEM). Besides, the specific characteristics of the Spanish health CARE system and the organisation of hospital emergency CARE offer a probably unique scenario, offering unique opportunities for their scientific analysis and study. Although the indices of Spanish scientific production in UEM were traditionally below those registered for researchers of other medical specialities, as well for UEM researchers of other countries, there has been a dynamic of continuous growth since 1995: it is the highest with respect to the former and second amongst our European colleagues. Besides, there is a great deal of low level scientific activity (papers presented to conferences). To increase scientific production in UEM there is a need to solve some aspects that hinder this task, such as: the lack of a scientific culture, doubtless united to the lack of a recognised speciality; the limited training in research methodology; the lack of explicit recognition of scientific work; the limited scientific infrastructure; the practically 100% dedication to the work of care tasks; the scarce participation in national grants for research projects; and the absence in Spain of an indexed journal specialising in UEM. Besides, we believe that it is necessary to promote and interrelate the research groups of different hospitals and emergency medical systems, both locally and amongst the different autonomous communities, so that they work in a coordinated way and thus obtain the necessary critical mass that will enable the formation of a thematic network of cooperative research.