After a long hiatus, Scrubs is back on TV with characters such as JD, who were interns and residents in the early seasons, now returning to Sacred Heart Hospital as attendings and department chairs. The Scrubs reboot is analogous to our department as we prepare for the 25th anniversary of Yale EM residency’s first graduating class this June and plan to welcome alumni back for a series of events starting this spring.
I often tell our trainees that academic emergency medicine is the best job in the world because of its spirit of generativity. The opportunity to grow and learn alongside other learners while witnessing our graduates’ growth into national leaders is awe-inspiring. Like the characters in Scrubs, many of our alumni return years later to join the faculty and lead at Yale.
The legacy that Yale EM has built over 25 years is not only seen on the national stage, with 15 of our alumni listed in the Blue Ridge rankings of NIH funding in emergency medicine, but also locally, as we receive recommendation letters written by our alums for medical students aspiring to become the next generation of Yale EM physicians. Just as Scrubs reminds us how much health care has been transformed since 2011, Yale EM reminds us how much we have transformed the specialty since 1996.