Summary

A specialty without a subject: national mapping of emergency medicine teaching in medical degrees in Spanish universities compared with the official program of the new specialty

Belén Ruiz-Antorán1,2, Álvaro Pineda-Torcuato1, Gemma Julia Muñoz de Mier3, Giuseppe Dominijanni1,4, María Aránzazu Sánchez-Calabuig5, María de la Sierra Espinar Buitrago3, August Supervia6-8, Gregorio Rodríguez-Boto2, Guillermo Burillo-Putze9,10, Antonio F Caballero-Bermejo1,2

Affiliation of the authors

1Unidad de Toxicología Clínica, Servicios de Urgencias y Farmacología Clínica, Hospital Universitario Puerta de Hierro Majadahonda, Madrid, Spain. 2Facultad de Medicina y Ciencias de la Salud, Universidad Nebrija, Madrid, Spain. 3Facultad de Ciencias Biomédicas y de la Salud, Universidad Alfonso X El Sabio, Madrid, Spain. 4Facultad de Medicina, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain. 5Facultad de Ciencias de la Salud, Universidad Camilo José Cela, Madrid, Spain. 6Servicio de Urgencias, Hospital del Mar, Barcelona, Spain. 7Unidad Funcional de Toxicologia del Parc de Salut del Mar, Grup de treball de Toxicologia de la SoCMUE (SoCMUETOX). 8Facultat de Medicina i Ciències de la Vida, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, España. 9Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain. 10Servicio de Urgencias, Hospital Universitario de Canarias, Tenerife, Spain.

DOI

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Ruiz-Antorán B, Pineda-Torcuato A, Muñoz de Mier GJ, Dominijanni G, Sánchez-Calabuig MA, Espinar Buitrago MS, et al. A specialty without a subject: national mapping of emergency medicine teaching in medical degrees in Spanish universities compared with the official program of the new specialty. Emergencias. 2026;38:439-46

Summary

Objective.

Following the recognition of the specialty of Emergency Medicine in 2024 and the publication of its Official Specialty Program in 2026, this study describes the current situation of Emergency Medicine as a subject in undergraduate medical degrees in Spain and maps, for the first time, its competency coverage against the framework of the Official Emergency Medicine Specialty Program.

Method.

Cross-sectional curricular mapping study including all Spanish universities offering a medical degree (n = 54) during the 2025–2026 academic year. Two researchers independently coded the 146 competencies of the Official Emergency Medicine Specialty Program in each teaching guide using an ordinal scale (0/1/2), and a weighted coverage index (WCI, 0–100%) was calculated by competency domain and by subject. Structural variables of the subjects were collected as possible predictors of the WCI.

Results.

A total of 44 universities (81.5%) offered a specific Emergency Medicine subject, with marked structural heterogeneity and no differences according to public or private ownership. The median overall WCI was 25.7% (IQR, 16.1–33.0; range, 5.4–66.2), with no significant association with any teaching variable. Of the 6 specific Emergency Medicine domains, only life support (59.4%) and assessment and syndromic orientation of the urgent patient (50.0%) exceeded 50% median coverage. Twelve of the 13 cross-cutting domains of Royal Decree 589/2022 had a median coverage of 0%, including equity, research, and teaching.

Conclusions.

According to the coverage declared in teaching guides, the undergraduate Emergency Medicine subject
covers only one quarter of the competency framework of the Official Emergency Medicine Specialty Program and systematically neglects cross-cutting competencies and the distinctive components of the specialty. These findings reflect a substantial discrepancy between the documentary coverage declared in teaching guides and the competency framework of the Official Emergency Medicine Specialty Program, rather than a direct measure of the competencies actually acquired.

 

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