Key Points of the Official Training Program for the Specialty of Emergency and Urgent Care Medicine in Spain

Abstract

For Emergency and Urgent Care Medicine (MUYE), July 2nd, 2024, will forever be remembered in Spanish health care as the date when the most anticipated and significant milestone was finally achieved—after an exceedingly long and arduous journey—with the publication of Royal Decree 610/2024, which established the title of Specialist Physician in Emergency and Urgent Care Medicine (MUYE). Currently, the specialty of MUYE is on the verge of the publication of an “SND Order” (a regulation issued by the Spanish Ministry of Health) that will define the final structure of the official training program (OTP) for MUYE, the evaluation criteria for physicians in training, and the accreditation requirements for the MUYE teaching units (TUs). In 2025, the National Commission for the Specialty (CNE) of MUYE prepared the OTP, which must be ratified by the Consejo Nacional de Especialidades en Ciencias de la Salud (CNECS). Without a doubt, this OTP represents an unprecedented, innovative, and highly significant framework, with distinctive features that set it apart from other specialty programs within the CNECS. The MUYE OTP must serve as the fundamental tool for training both competent and compassionate specialists, integrating professionalism, humanism, and excellence through the acquisition of the competencies, skills, knowledge, and experience necessary to complete the 4 years of specialized medical training. The objectives of this article are to present the most relevant, distinctive, and innovative aspects of the MUYE OTP (recently published as a Draft Order for public consultation by the Spanish Ministry of Health), including its competency areas—“transversal” (shared with all other specialties in Health Sciences), “common” (developed jointly by the Delegated Commission on Immediate Care for both Family and Community Medicine (MFyC) and MUYE), and “specific” (unique to MUYE); and the accreditation requirements for the TUs, which will comprise 3 key training settings representing the essential environments for the learning and professional development of MUYE specialists: the emergency department of the teaching reference hospital, the Emergency Medical Services (EMS), and the emergency department of the teaching hospital.