UW Health is the integrated health system of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. UW Hospitals and Clinics constitutes the region’s premier comprehensive health care centers, having served Midwestern communities with state-of-the-art, patient-centered care for more than 100 years.
Among UW Health’s distinguished portfolio of specialty centers and affiliated hospitals, the UW Hospitals and Clinics are the top-ranked hospital system in the state and the only ACS-certified adult and pediatric Level 1 trauma and burn center in south-central Wisconsin. Becker’s Hospital Review has also named UW Health to its 100 Great Hospitals in America.
Ranked the #1 hospital in Wisconsin for the last 13 years in a row by U.S. News & World Report.
Hospitals & Prehospital Services
As a certified Level 1 Trauma and Burn Center, our flagship ED at University Hospital cares for nearly 70,000 adult and pediatric patients annually. One of just two academic medical centers in the state, University Hospital is a busy, 505-bed regional referral center that was recently named to Newsweek’s top U.S. 25 hospitals.
Our care teams also see an additional 45,000 patients each year between our community ED at East Madison Hospital and the ED at Madison’s five-star veterans center, the William S. Middleton Veterans Memorial Hospital. More than 17,000 patients visit our 11-bed pediatric ED at the American Family Children’s Hospital each year, with care led by our eight pediatric emergency medicine faculty.
Also falling within our scope is UW Health Med Flight, one of the few air and ground medical services in the U.S. with an attending-level emergency physician on every transport. Our Med Flight faculty are recognized worldwide as experts and educators in critical care transport and retrieval.
More about our emergency departments
BerbeeWalsh Emergency Department at University Hospital
Our residents staff the emergency department at University Hospital (UH) in central Madison throughout all three years of residency, where they complete most of their rotations and have significant exposure to critical care, resuscitation, trauma, and prehospital medicine.
- Annual volume: 70,000 adult and pediatric patients
- Daily census: 200-300 patients
- Admission rate: 27.4%
- 24/7 Pharmacy & Social Work, with dedicated ED Physical Therapists
- Great relationship with trauma service, nursing, ICUs and hospital leadership
- “8+1-hour” model for all clinical shifts, allowing for a period of overlap for signout and documentation with the oncoming team.
- Residents typically work 19 clinical shifts/block as in year 1 and 18 shifts/block in years 2 and 3.
The ED has 58 beds, including three trauma bays, 10 pediatric rooms, three Multiple Purpose Procedure (MPP) rooms, a 4-bed flexible care area, and two physician-in-triage/intake rooms known as CareSTART (Safe and Timely Assessment and Rapid Treatment). Our critical care faculty also clinically staff the state-of-the-art, 18-bed intensive care unit plumbed for multimodality monitoring and eICU cameras.
UH has one of the nation’s largest organ transplant programs, one of the nation’s first certified comprehensive stroke centers, and the UW Carbone Cancer Center, one of 41 National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive centers in the country.
East Madison Hospital
UW Health’s East Madison Hospital is one of the most advanced wellness centers in the country with full medical/surgical inpatient services. This 56-bed community hospital sees healthcare as a holistic endeavor with a mission to not only diagnose and treat patients when they’re sick, but also to partner with them in health and wellness.
Our emergency department cares for a diverse group of patients in this community setting where services and specialties available continue to expand.
- 16 beds
- Annual volume: 32,500 adult and pediatric patients, rapidly increasing each year
- Lead medical direction for ICU
- Significant expansion of physical footprint planned to open in 2026
- Certified Acute Stroke Ready Hospital by The Joint Commission, indicating its high level of stroke readiness and response.
Pediatric Emergency Department at American Family Children’s Hospital
- Annual volume: 17,000 pediatric patients, rapidly increasing each year
- 11 pediatric rooms adjacent to University Hospital ED
- Staffed by 7 PEM fellowship-trained faculty
- Dedicated Peds Nurses & Respiratory Therapists, 27/4 Child Life, Pharmacy, and Social Work
- Strong, collaborative relationship with pediatric/neonatal critical care transport teams
- Nationally ranked, 111-bed Level I trauma center with pediatric and neonatal surgical ICUs
- Serving the special needs of children for 100+ years
Residents have longitudinal Peds ED shifts along with 2 dedicated blocks, focused didactic curriculum, and additional exposure to pediatric emergency medicine at our community sites: East Madison Hospital and Beloit Memorial Hospital
As one of the nation’s distinguished five-star Veterans Health Administration medical centers, the William S. Middleton Memorial Veterans Hospital is 87-bed acute care facility provides tertiary care to 95,000 veterans across 19 counties in Wisconsin & Illinois and includes one of the few heart, lung, kidney, and liver transplant and LVAD programs within the VHA.
The Madison VHA hospital is physically contiguous with University Hospital and houses an 11-bed emergency department that provides care to 13,500 adult patients annually and is accredited as a Level 2 Geriatric Emergency Department by the American College of Emergency Physicians. Our faculty physicians provide 12 hours of attending physician coverage daily, and we partner with emergency medicine pharmacists, Women’s Health, Mental Health, critical care and palliative care services to provide comprehensive emergency care for veterans.
Residents complete a dedicated VA shift during intern year and have longitudinal shifts throughout residency training.
A busy Level III trauma center that is part of the Beloit Health System, this 111-bed community hospital and 26-bed ED is located 45 miles south of Madison on the Wisconsin/Illinois border. The ED cares for approximately 36,000 patients annually. This hospital hosts our residents during their PGY 2 and PGY 3 years and provides a clinical home for a number of our fellows to grow as independent providers.
Throughout their residency, our learners complete approximately 30 shifts in the community ED setting between their second and third years, working one-on-one with faculty while gaining significant independent clinical responsibilities.
UW Health Med Flight is a premier air and ground critical care transport and retrieval service that has served the upper Midwest for over 35 years and logs more than 2,300 transports per year. Our program is CAMTS-certified and has long been recognized in air medical circles for its success in providing one of the safest air medical transport services in the country.
UW Health Med Flight operates 24/7/365 from three regional bases and transports via three EC-145 aircraft and two critical care ambulances. We partner with leading FAA-certified and industry-accredited Metro Aviation, Inc. to maintain, operate and pilot all aircraft, and we are one of only a few programs in the country to transport with a licensed physician routinely on board.
While many HEMS programs that fly with physicians do so with residents, we have the capability to staff each flight with an attending-level EM physician. Most of our Med Flight attending physicians are extremely experienced in the field, and provide our residents with the best introduction to prehospital care and critical care transport found anywhere.
The decision to fly is voluntary and has no effect on matching at UW or what residency experience may be like once here. It is, however, an incredible educational opportunity that sets our residency program apart. Learn more about UW Health Med Flight.
Clinical Simulation Center
With access to UW Health’s 8,500-square-foot Clinical Simulation facilities, our residents have a greater ability to participate in interdisciplinary training, as well as enhance their procedural skills in airway management, ultrasound, central line access, and many other essential EM procedures.
The Clinical Simulation Program has state-of-the-art simulation resources, including a wet skills laboratory for tissue-based simulation, 24/7-accessible dry skills laboratory for computer-based learning and task training, task/virtual reality simulators, advanced audio-visual capture and playback systems, and didactic learning spaces. High-fidelity manikins, task trainers and virtual reality trainers provide an effective, efficient, and realistic experience to learners of various disciplines and levels of training.
Residents also conduct training at our campus anatomy lab and can contribute to outdoor wilderness medicine simulations for medical students.
Education Offices
Our educational offices are located directly across the street from our main hospital/ED, making it convenient to get to/from shifts to conference or meetings. We also have the benefit of private suites, a comfortable residency lounge, sleep room, refrigerators and dining space, lactation space, showers, and indoor/outdoor bicycle storage.
Our modern office space is LEED Platinum Certified and the orientation and design maximizes the use of natural day lighting. We often utilize its ample green space and a patio courtyard for small-group meetings. A locally-owned coffee shop is also conveniently located across the street.
Many faculty and residents prefer to bike to work, and our space is easily accessible by Madison’s excellent network of bike paths.