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HCMC
Emergency Medicine
June 13-15, 1997
 
Department of Emergency Medicine
The specialty of Emergency Medicinewas born of a national crisis inemergency care that emerged in thelate 1960s and early 70s. During thistime, the Emergency Dept. atHennepin General Hospital waschallenged to meet the needs of itsarea residents for improvedemergency health care. In 1971,Claude Hitchcock, M.D., then chief of Surgery, appointed one of his staff surgeons to head a new Departmentof Emergency Medicine which wouldmanage the Emergency Dept., then asection of the Department of 
Surgery. Ernest Ruiz, M.D., the department’s first chief of 
service (1971-1992), was that surgeon. Dr. Ruiz accepted theposition, realizing that major challenges lay ahead.
The new department’s first task was to establish a residency in
Emergency Medicine. Two surgery residents, Robert Long,M.D., and Pat Lilja, M.D., chose to become the first residents of 
Hennepin General Hospital’s new residency program in this
specialty. It was only the second such Emergency Medicineresidency program available in the United States in 1972. Theresidency has flourished since that time. Graduates haveaccepted leadership positions in many of the busiestemergency hospitals in the region, ensuring improvements inemergency care throughout their communities and beyond.
Ernest Ruiz M.D.
 
Class of 1973
G. Patrick Lilja Robert S. Long 
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