Transitioning From Anesthesia to Emergency Medicine for Airway Management in Rural Trauma Patients.

Introduction: When our rural trauma center first became certified in 1986, the Emergency Department (ED) was a mix of board-certified Emergency Medicine (EM) and Family Medicine trained physicians each with various degrees of airway experience. Therefore, Anesthesia providers had provided airway management during trauma activations for decades. Recently, our institution saw dramatic growth in the ED which is now staffed by board certified EM physicians and complemented by an EM residency program.