Emergency medicine a department

The Yale Corporation granted departmental status in June to the Section of Emergency Medicine, which had been part of the Department of Surgery since 1991. Gail D’Onofrio, M.D., the current section chief, was named chair of the new department.

A faculty committee recommended unanimously last fall that the section, which met standards for academic and programmatic importance, was ready to be elevated to departmental status. Emergency medicine has emerged as a distinct discipline during the past two decades, and 83 percent of all emergency medicine programs nationally are located within independent departments.

Emergency medicine is now the 28th academic department at the school. Since its creation as a section, it has grown from five to 33 faculty members, who have responsibility for 72,500 patient visits per year at Yale-New Haven Hospital and 21,600 visits annually at the Yale-New Haven Shoreline Medical Center in Guilford.