Sailboats off Galveston Beach

UTMB Sealy Department of Emergency Medicine

Residency Program Overview

Mission, Vision, Values

  • Improve health for the people of Texas and around the world by offering innovative education and training, pursuing cutting–edge research, and providing the highest quality patient care.
Jennie Sealy Fountain image

For patients who are admitted to a hospital, the emergency department often represents a gateway to their care. The physicians who receive these patients must be able to respond to a wide variety of medical needs, playing a critical role in setting the patient’s path to healing. It is one of many reasons a highly skilled, well-trained emergency medicine workforce is essential.

Dr. Jehle’s distinguished career includes numerous academic and community hospital appointments and a 27-year run as the Buffalo Bills’ Director of Emergency Medical Services. Notably, he has led the development of EM residency programs at three different academic medical centers. He is excited to work on a fourth at UTMB, making Emergency Medicine the newest addition to UTMB’s 59 current Graduate Medical Education programs.

“There's something sacred about the practice of emergency medicine. We are the safety net in the United States for health care. We take care of everybody regardless of their ability to pay, any time of day, any kind of complaint, any age, and there's something special about that,” Dr. Jehle says.

The specialty of emergency medicine is defined by the American College of Emergency Physicians as being “dedicated to the diagnosis and treatment of unforeseen illness or injury.” The range of skills and knowledge required of an EM physician is broad, as they must be equipped to respond a myriad of case types, including, but not limited to respiratory issues; head, neck and spine injuries; severe bleeding; cardiac and stroke symptoms; broken bones; and serious wounds.

Dr. Jehle points out that emergency physicians play critical roles not only in the ED or urgent care centers, but in disaster response situations among other settings where emergency care is critical. He names UTMB’s programs in Aerospace Medicine and Polar Operations as potential opportunities for collaboration, and he hopes to work with Texas A&M University at Galveston when it acquires its new National Security Multi-Mission Vessel, a state-of-the-art ship to be used for training that will also serve as a critical disaster resource.

Dr. Jehle has a wealth of EM experience that includes airway management (an important part of his work with the NFL), oximetry studies, trauma, and resuscitation head cooling for cardiac arrest. He is perhaps best known for his innovative work with ultrasound, having pioneered use of the bedside ultrasound in the U.S. He hopes to bring ultrasound into the medical school curriculum at UTMB – especially as ultrasound probes have become much more portable, being small enough to plug into a cell phone.

“Ultrasound probes will probably be viewed in the same way as a stethoscope was when I started medical school. You bought a stethoscope on day one, and that was one of the tools that you used,” he said. “We’ll work to bring it into the curriculum to a greater degree, and we're hoping to hire several ultrasound fellowship-trained faculty.”

Dr. Jehle says interest in EM among medical students has been strong, with about 10 to 20 UTMB graduates entering EM residency programs each year. The UTMB EM residency will support five residents per year for the three-year program.

Collaborations:

  • Disaster Response Boat with Texas A&M Galveston

Research Projects:

  • TNK vs tPA for Stroke
  • NOACs and tPA in Stroke
  • Aortic Dissection - Sensitivity of D-Dimer
  • Bicarbonate - Marker of mortality in Trauma
  • STEMIs and Potassium Levels - Differences in mortality
  • Artificial Intelligence to interpret the fast exam—free fluid

Medical Student Education:

  • Gross Anatomy and Radiology, MS1 Ultrasound Education
  • Ultrasound Elective Rotation (2 or 4 weeks), MS3 and MS4
  • Acting Internship in Emergency  Medicine for MS4 students

Emergency Medicine Resident Block Schedule

Emergency Medicine/Aerospace Medicine Residency Program