Faculty Spotlight: Anthony Wong

The thought of working in emergency medicine can be daunting for many, but for clinical assistant professor Anthony Wong, MD, the fast-paced environment is a welcome challenge.

“I truly love what I do. Emergency medicine can be tough. You are dealing with people who are unhappy and are in pain. You have to learn to turn that around and make them feel better,” he said.

Dr. Wong is a clinical assistant professor at the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix and an emergency medicine physician at Banner Ironwood Medical Center in Queen Creek. He teaches emergency medicine to residents and students at Banner – University Medical Center Phoenix.

He received his bachelor’s degree from Arizona State University in medical technology and graduated from the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Tucson. He completed his residency in Pittsburgh in 2011, and began working for Emergency Professional Services, which staffs the emergency room at Banner – University Medical Center, Banner Ironwood and Banner Goldfield.

Although his passion is emergency medicine, Dr. Wong began his college career as an engineering major.

“I didn’t think about medicine until after my first year of college. I found out that I did not like engineering, but I chose it right out of high school because my father is an engineer,” Dr. Wong recalled. “When I realized that it wasn’t my calling, I had to do a little soul searching on what I really wanted to do. I thought back to my job as a lifeguard and I remembered really liking the first aid aspect of that, which led me to medicine.”

While volunteering in an emergency room, the chaos provided clarity about his calling.

“I had never seen anything like that. It was this organized chaos. People were running around everywhere, but everybody knew what job they needed to do. I could do CPR on the patients, and I watched the physicians start a central line, which blew my mind. After that, I applied to be a tech in the ER and I’ve grown up in the ER since.”

His time in the emergency room opened his eyes to the need for accessible medical care for vulnerable communities. He found out about the medical student-run Street Medicine program, which cares for those unable to access adequate health care.

“They have no one to look out for them,” Dr. Wong said. “It is a very altruistic service that we can provide.” Through the long hours and hard work as an emergency physician and a medical school professor, Dr. Wong said he feels rewarded every day.

“Sometimes, the greatest awards are the smile of a child, holding the hand of somebody you just diagnosed with cancer or talking to family members about someone who just passed. It’s a tough job. It’s easy to get caught up in the negative, because there is so much negative there. But you have to realize how much good you do for people in their sickest times.”

His advice to medical students is to “keep a copy of your personal statement from your medical school application. It's easy to forget why you went into medicine during your training and to get jaded about medicine and taking care of patients.”