Buffalo General Medical Center
Located on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, Buffalo General Medical Center offers a wide spectrum of clinical inpatient and outpatient treatment programs.
Buffalo General Medical Center is one of two “core hospitals” in the program. The offices of the chair, vice chair, program director and coordinator, and many faculty members are located there. Office space for the residents is also provided at this site.
This 500-bed acute care center, located on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, is one of the region’s major hospitals.
Much of the patient base comes from the local urban area. The hospital also serves as a tertiary referral center, with a significant patient population drawn from Western New York’s eight counties.
Patients present with the entire range of disease states in internal medicine, general surgery and cardiothoracic surgery, with many critically ill cases.
Training
Most of formal didactic teaching is provided at this hospital.
The Emergency Department (ED) is a high acuity site with a high proportion of sick adult medical patients. Over 25-30% of the patients require inpatient admission, many to intensive care or monitored beds. The level of acuity and types of illness encountered in the BGMC ED provide a good patient base for training in adult emergency medicine with the exception of major trauma (see Erie County Medical Center). There is an Observation Unit which admits patients with low risk chest pain, asthma, decompensated heart failure and many other diagnoses who have anticipated observation periods of < 48 hours.
Off-Service Rotations
Off-service rotations at BGMC include the following:
- Medical ICU (MICU): In the MICU, residents participate in the care of critically ill patients with a wide variety of illnesses. The MICU is a high volume, high acuity setting.
- Cardiovascular ICU (CCU): The CCU at BGMC is a busy unit with a patient population that includes a full spectrum of cardiac disease. In this unit, EM residents help care for a large volume of patients, many admitted directly from the ED.