Emergency medicine in France

In France, there are two types of emergency rooms: the specialized services (called SAU) and the proximity units (called Upatou).

Service specialized in emergency care

A hospital (public or private) can have a specialized service "(service spécialisé d'accueil et de traitement des urgences)" only if it can already take care of the most probable trauma and disease in classical hospitalization: resuscitation unit, general and internal medicine, cardio-vascular medicine, pediatrics, anesthesiology-resuscitation, Orthopedic surgery and visceral surgery, including Gynecological surgery. The hospital must have
* two operating rooms (and a wake-up room) with personnel on duty that allow operation at any time;
* services that can perform examination and analyses at any time: medical imaging (radiography, medical ultrasonography, computed tomography, angiography...), haematology, biochemistry, de toxicology laboratories, etc.

The specialized service is managed by an emergency physician. An emergency physician must be on duty anytime, and a specialized physician can be called anytime depending on the specific pathology (i.e. on duty in the hospital, not in the emergency service).

The team must have, in addition to the emergency physician:
* two nurses ;
* care assistants, possibly child care assistants;
* a social worker;
* a receptionist;all must have a specific education for emergencies.

The service is organized in three zones:
* a reception zone,
* a zone for the examination and the cares (including intensive cares),
* a zone for the watch over short durations (patients waiting to go out or for a transfer in another service).Most services also have a massive crowd room that allow to take care of a great number of patients ("plan blanc").

There are also specialized poles "(pôle spécialisé d'accueil et de traitement des urgences)" that can anly take care of specific pathologies or specific types of patients (e.g. pediatrics).

Proximity units

Blurb about proximity units goes here.