Acute medicine was recognised as a subspeciality of General (Internal) Medicine by the Specialist Training Authority in July 2003. In practice it had been growing as a clinical entity for over a decade and several reports have been published.1, 2, 3 The most recent Royal College of Physicians report on Acute medicine: making it work for patients4 states “Acute medicine in the UK requires the development of an academic and research base in order to support teaching and training at medical undergraduate and postgraduate level, to support basic and clinical research, to develop clinical standards, and to provide audit tools for the assessment of clinical performance.”
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References

1. Federation of Medical Royal Colleges. Acute medicine: the physician’s role – proposals for the future. Report of a working party. London Federation of Medical Royal Colleges 2000.
2. Royal College of Physicians. The interface of accident and emergency and acute medicine. Report of a working party, London: RCP, 2002.
3. Royal College of Physicians. The interface between acute general medicine and critical care. Report of a working party. London RCP, 2002
4. Royal College of Physicians. Acute Medicine: making it work for patients. Report of a working party 2004.
5. Bell CM, Redelmeier DA. Mortality among patients admitted to hospitals on weekends as compared with weekdays. N. Engl J Med 2001; 345: 663-8
6. Cullinane M, Findlay G, Hargraves C, Lucas S. An acute problem? National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death 2005.
7. Rivers, El, Nguyen, B, Havstad, S, Ressler, J, Muzzin, A, Knoblich, B, Peterson, E, Tomlanovich, M, The Early Goal-Directed Therapy Collaborative Group, Treatment of Severe Sepsis and Septic Shock N Engl J Med 2001 345: 1368-1377.
8. Pedley DK, Bissett K, Connolly EM, Goodman CG, Golding I, Pringle TH, McNeill GP, Pringle SD, Jones MC. Prospective observational cohort study of time saved by prehospital thrombolysis for ST elevation myocardial infarction delivered by paramedics. BMJ 2003: 327: 22-6
9. Moore S, Gemmell I, Almond S et al. Impact of specialist care on clinical outcomes for medical emergencies. Clin. Med 2006; 6: 286-93
10. Schmulewitz L; Proundfoot A; Bell D. The impact of weekends on outcome for emergency patients. Clin. Med. 2005; 5: 621-625,
11. Cram P, Hillis SL, Barnett J, Rosenthal GE, Effects of weekend admission and hospital teaching status on in-hospital mortality. AM. J. Med 2004: 117: 151-157
12. Patterson R, MacLeod DC, Thetford D, Beattie A, Graham C, Lam S and Bell D. Prediction of in-hospital mortality and length of stay using an early warning scoring system: clinical audit. Clinical Medicine. 2006; 6: 281-284
13. Building a memory: preventing harm reducing and improving patient safety. The first report of the National Reporting and Learning system and the Patient Safety Observatory. National Patient Safety Agency 2005.
14. Bell D, McNaney N, Jones M. Improving Healthcare through redesign. BMJ 2006: 332: 1286-1287
15. Academy of Medical Sciences. Strengthening clinical research. London: Academy of Medical Sciences, 2003
16. Rothwell P M Medical Academia is failing patients and clinicians 2006; 332: 863-864