An emergency, or emergency medical condition, is somewhat difficult to define, as it means different things to different people - one person's "emergency" may be someone else's baseline status. To some degree, an emergency is anything that a person feels is emergent. In emergency medicine, we tend to think in terms of "chief complaints" (for example, chest or abdominal pain) and what those complaints could represent (for example, a heart attack or acute appendicitis); Yet someone who presents to the emergency department with a chief complaint of "chest pain" could in fact turn out to be esophageal reflux, gas pain, or gallbladder disease. You are evaluated for your chief complaint, and the physician, after taking your medical history and performing a physical exam, comes up with a "differential diagnosis" - a list of all of the possibilities, which could account for your symptoms, from most likely to least likely. We think in terms of "what is the worst, most dangerous condition that these symptoms could represent?" Then we test that hypothesis by getting tests, which will help to prove or exclude the most dangerous condition, then move to the next less emergent condition until we can explain your symptoms. Sometimes tests do not show any abnormalities and we have to take an educated guess at a "provisional diagnosis". As you can see, an emergency medical condition can be quite obvious to anyone with even no medical training - such as someone bleeding to death because they cut their arm off with a saw ! However, many serious medical emergencies are very subtle and difficult to diagnose with all of our available testing to even the most astute experienced emergency physician.

All of that being said, if you think you might have an emergency medical condition, please come to the emergency department. Do not delay!! If you have symptoms such as shortness of breath or chest pain, please call 911. Do not attempt to drive yourself to the Hospital.