Training Sites

"At UCLA Ronald Reagan, complex and high-acuity patient populations, including transplant patients, LVADs, and congenital heart patients push your cognitive capacity daily. These experiences truly prepare me for any disease process that I may encounter in my future career." - Brandon Firestone (Class of 2017)

The UCLA Medical Center serves as both an international referral center and a community hospital for the population of West Los Angeles. Ronald Reagan Medical Center is a Level I Trauma, Stroke, Pediatric, and STEMI Referral Center, with fully accredited training programs in 70 nationally renowned specialties. Consequently, our medical training benefits from exposure to all facets of the hospital, in addition to the expertise of our distinguished Emergency Department faculty. UCLA Medical Center is part of the UCLA Health network that includes UCLA Santa Monica Medical Center, UCLA West Valley Medical Center, and nearly 300 outpatient sites and ambulatory surgery centers around Southern California. The US News and World report continually ranks Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center among the best American hospitals. 

"Olive View shares some of the same experiences of working in a community ED with limited resources and truly forces you to be independent and be able to manage complex pathology without the full panel of in-house tertiary consultants. I have had to learn how to manage transferring STEMIs, intracranial hemorrhages, and sick children to outside hospitals with appropriate resources." - Shamsher Samra (Class of 2017)

Olive View-UCLA Medical Center (OVMC) is located in the San Fernando Valley community of Sylmar, 25 miles north of the UCLA Westwood Campus. The Emergency Department has been a leader at OVMC since the UCLA EM residency opened its second home there in the 1980s. The OVMC faculty features some of the leading researchers and educators in the country. Many of our full time faculty are double boarded in both Emergency Medicine and Internal Medicine. This provides a unique perspective in the training experience, enhancing the training experience and offering residents a comprehensive view of patient care.

Olive View combines the traditional County service mission to the underserved with a world class, full time academic faculty from the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. The hospital serves a diverse group including the surrounding low income neighborhoods, recently-arrived international population, and the indigent population.

"These are the best community ED physicians in the country. We all playfully call them 'cowboys of EM' because of the chaotic and fast paced environment they work in." - Jake Wilson (Class of 2018)

Antelope Valley Hospital is a 420 bed public, not-for-profit hospital that serves a large and diverse community in northern LA County. The ED is one of the busiest in California with an annual census of over 120,000 patients. The ED is a designated Trauma Center, Stroke Center, EMS Base Hospital, Peds ED and STEMI center. Antelope Valley Emergency Medicine Associates (AVEMA), a single-hospital physician partnership, has staffed the ED for over 40 years. Many of the AVEMA physicians are graduates of our residency who still attend part time at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center and are actively involved in all aspects of the residency program, including EMS, administration, research, and fellowship training.

"On one shift, I did 8 intubations, a thoracotomy, and 2 pericardiocentesis [sic]." - Chris Katsura (Class of 2017)

UCLA Emergency Medicine residents spend a minimum of 12 weeks at Antelope Valley Hospital (AVH). During their time at AVH, residents primarily work in the high-acuity area of the Emergency Department, managing critically ill patients and performing a variety of procedures. On a typical shift, a resident might handle multiple patients with severe illnesses such as CHF, sepsis, eclampsia, and medical codes, while performing procedures on these patients and others in the ED. It is common for residents to perform several major procedures, including intubations, central lines, and chest tubes, as well as numerous other procedures during each shift.

Residents also have the opportunity to participate in all trauma resuscitations and perform nearly all major procedures on trauma patients. In addition to the required 12 weeks, residents can pursue additional elective time in pediatrics and obstetrics at AVH, which many residents choose to take advantage of. The AVH rotations are consistently rated as some of the top rotations by our residents.

"The Pediatric ED at CHLA sees such a variety of pathology unique to children. We are really fortunate to rotate there. However, for those of us who have friends and family out of the LA area, our program allows us the flexibility to do our dedicated pediatric EM time at any children's hospital in the country. These weeks, along with the children we already see at UCLA, Olive-View UCLA, and Antelope Valley, makes me confident to take care of any sick child who walks into the ED." - Brandon Endo (Class of 2018)

Our EM residents rotate at Children's Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) ED during their R2 and R3 years. During the R3 year, residents are given the option to rotate at other training sites throughout the country, and some have done so at places, such as Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago and Children's Hospital Colorado in Denver.

CHLA is one of the country's premier pediatric hospitals, providing a full array of medical and surgical services to infants, children and adolescents. The ED is a designated Level I Pediatric Trauma Center and a Pediatric Critical Care Center and treats 66,000 patients annually including 700 trauma activations.

Although our residents take care of pediatric patients at RRMC, OVMC and AVH daily, the concentrated experience at CHLA during the R2 and R3 years helps residents to more rapidly achieve mastery of Pediatric Emergency Medicine.

"The cardiology fellows and faculty are some of the most brilliant in the field. Every day in the CCU, you are constantly pushed with the complex patients that get admitted to the CCU service." - Adam Evans (Class of 2018)

Our EM residents rotate at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center (CSMC) Cardiac Intensive Care Unit during their R2 year.

With 865 beds, CSMC is the largest academic medical center in California, and its Cardiology and cardiac surgery program is amongst the best in the country. Housed in the beautiful Saperstein Intensive Care Tower, the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit admits patients with a variety of cardiac conditions, including acute myocardial infarction, decompensated heart failure, and unstable valvular disease.