About Us

"You can try, but you’ll never stop a Badger."

The University of Wisconsin–Madison

You can’t stop a Badger…

Because we Badgers are born with curious minds and endless heart. For 175 years, UW’s life-changing research, innovation and education has served generations of Wisconsin families. We’ll never stop working to make our state — and the world — a better place.

At the BerbeeWalsh Department of Emergency Medicine, we are bold, purposeful, tenacious, and grounded in our dedication to our patients and communities. We are a forward focused academic department of nearly 45 core faculty, of whom nearly two-thirds are former chief residents.

Training the next generation of emergency physicians and clinician-scientists is integral to our mission, with over 45 residents and fellows being trained each year in our ACGME-accredited emergency medicine residency program and our many fellowship training programs.

Our research enterprise enhances and facilitates high-impact clinical and translational emergency care research and fosters the successful development of investigators dedicated to generating new knowledge.

The Department of Emergency Medicine is deeply committed to improving the health and well-being of the people of Wisconsin and beyond, a goal fundamentally linked to the mission of the UW School of Medicine and Public Health. By working in partnership with physicians, hospitals, prehospital providers, and local communities, we provide Wisconsin families with local, accessible health care every day.

To learn more about our department, we invite you to read a message from our distinguished Chair and to visit our education, research, clinical care, and academic divisions pages.

Key Facts

Established: 2007 (division), 2014 (department)

Chair: Manish N. Shah, MD, MPH (2022-present)

Divisions & Sections:
Critical Care »
EMS »
Global Health »
Med Flight »
Pediatric Emergency Medicine »
Simulation »
Ultrasound »

Primary Teaching Hospital: The University Hospital ED cared for nearly 67,000 adult and pediatric patients in 2022

Research Funding: Ranked in top 15 nationally for NIH funding in emergency medicine with $4.3M total research & extramural awards, including 17 grants (FY22)

Our Institutional Partners

The University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health (SMPH) is recognized as an international, national, and statewide leader in education, research, and service. Founded in 1907, it transformed into the nation’s first School of Medicine and Public Health in 2005 to integrate the principles and power of interwoven medical and public health approaches in all of its missions.

Powered by more than 5,500 employees, including over 2,000 faculty, the school’s engagement spans the entire state of Wisconsin and includes a deep commitment to improvement of the health of the population. This commitment manifests itself in innovative models that serve as paradigms for the rest of the country.

With active programs in basic, clinical and public health science, the UW SMPH has a tradition of pioneering research, receiving nearly $524 million in research funding in 2020-21. It has also consistently ranked among U.S. News and World Report’s best medical schools for primary care and research. Grants obtained by SMPH faculty constituted 44% of total grants to UW–Madison during 2020-21.

Members of the school rapidly translate discovery into application and continually foster synergies between clinical care, education, and research. Consistently ranked among the nation’s top medical schools, SMPH has established high-performance academic programs that are intentionally distributed across the entire spectrum of academic medicine. Its faculty members hold appointments in 27 departments — 17 in the clinical sciences and 10 in the basic sciences. The faculty is composed of some of the nation’s leading researchers, educators, and clinicians. This includes several National Medal of Science recipients and National Academy of Science honorees.

Representing the 1,785 clinical faculty physicians of the UW School of Medicine and Public Health is the UW Medical Foundation, the state’s second-largest medical practice group.

Learn more at med.wisc.edu.

UW Health is the integrated regional health system of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Annually, more than 800,000 patients in the upper Midwest and beyond are served by over 1,800 physicians providing care in seven hospitals and more than 90 outpatient sites. The health system’s annual budget is approximately $5.1 billion. UW Health is governed by the UW Hospitals and Clinics Authority and partners with the UW School of Medicine and Public Health to fulfill its patient care, research, education and community service missions.

UW Health facts & figuresUW Health Hospitals, which includes both University Hospital on the UW–Madison campus and East Madison Hospital, has been ranked No. 1 in Wisconsin for 12 years in a row by U.S. News and World Report. University Hospital is one of only 25 U.S. hospitals named to Newsweek’s “Top 100 Global” list, which includes hospitals in 11 countries around the world. UW Health also operates 80 ACGME-accredited graduate medical education programs.

UW Health has been designated by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation as a Leader in LGBTQ+ Healthcare Equality in the Healthcare Equality Index. University of Wisconsin Hospitals and Clinics, East Madison Hospital and American Family Children’s Hospital are also recognized as Magnet®-designated facilities for nursing excellence and quality patient care.

The Department of Emergency Medicine also delivers compassionate, high-quality, evidence-based emergency care to children from throughout the region and across the state. Clinical care is primarily delivered at our 11-bed, dedicated pediatric emergency department at the American Family Children’s Hospital—a nationally-ranked, 111-bed facility with pediatric and neonatal surgical intensive care units that have served the special needs of children for more than 100 years. It is a busy Level I pediatric trauma center, one of two in the state, and the only verified pediatric burn center in Wisconsin. American Family Children’s Hospital is also nationally ranked as a top children’s hospital.

Learn more at uwhealth.org or read more facts & figures about the UW Health system.

“The University of Wisconsin–Madison is distinctive in its scale and breadth, the premium we place on our relevance to society, and our commitment to inclusivity in the broadest sense.” — Rebecca M. Blank, Chancellor (2013-2022)

UW-Madison Points of PrideSince 1848, this campus has been a catalyst for the extraordinary. As a public land-grant university and one of the most prolific research institutions in the world, UW–Madison is home to those who are driven by a desire to both explore new worlds and to apply new ideas to real-world problems.

With a total annual budget of over $3.6 billion including more than $1.5 billion in annual research expenditures, UW–Madison has been in the top 10 in national research spending every year since 1972. The campus is home to more than 24,000 faculty and staff and 46,000 undergraduate, graduate, and professional degree students. Members of the student body represent all 50 states and 112 countries. The university is ranked 28th worldwide by the Center for World University Rankings, and second among national public universities and 11th overall in Washington Monthly’s 2023 College Guide and Rankings.

The Wisconsin Idea—the principle that the university should improve people’s lives beyond the classroom— has been guiding the efforts of UW–Madison Badgers for more than a century. The university has been dedicated to studying poverty and social inequity for 50 years, is ranked #1 among large schools for producing Peace Corps volunteers, and boasts 20 Nobel Prize and 41 Pulitzer Prize winners among its faculty and alumni.

Discover the Wisconsin Experience at wisc.edu.

As one of the nation’s distinguished five-star VA 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 VA. In 2022, it received the highest national award for patient experience among all VA medical centers in the United States, as well as a 5-star rating for patient experience from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

The Madison VA 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.

Learn more at madison.va.gov.

Our Department, Our City

“To create, integrate, transfer, and apply knowledge.”

Our mission statement