Emergency medicine clinicians care for multiple patients in an unscheduled, high-acuity environment with a rapid stream of observations, tests, and treatments. Thus, in emergency medicine, patient care team members must address their information needs quickly and accurately. 1,2 In the course of every patient visit, emergency physicians use information resources to communicate with those who have prior information, view patient data, How Do Medical Students Manage Their Information Needs in Unscheduled and High-Acuity Environments?Introduction An important aspect of emergency medicine is information management, or the ability to deal effectively with the vast volume of medical information that continues to increase rapidly. Emergency medicine is a significant part of the curriculum for medical students and it is expected that all students who graduate from medical school will be capable of handling emergency situations. Because no study has focused on medical students' information needs and information seeking behavior in Iran (2000-2007), many questions have arisen such as: What are the barriers to medical students' information needs? What sources do medical students employ to answer questions? How do students use these information sources to resolve their information needs? and What are the barriers to medical students' retrieval of information in fast-paced, information-intensive environments such as emergency settings? MethodsSeventy medical students were evaluated by questionnaire and observation at teaching hospitals affiliated with the Iran University of Medical Sciences. Analysis of data was conducted using SPSS. Chi-square, two-tailed, and bi-variate correlation tests were used to investigate significant relationships among the data. ResultsStudents' major information needs were related to a specific patient. Thus, nearly 47% of questions pertained to diagnosis. In contrast, they perceived few needs for organizational information such as hospital policies and procedures. Students preferred prepared information sources such as patients' charts, patients, and colleagues. They reported that the barriers to information retrieval from electronic resources were time limitations, poor access to computers, and lack of Internet searching skills. ConclusionFindings support the development of educational programs to promote student knowledge about organizational information in emergency medicine. This study also suggests that, rather than desktop computers, more available resources, such as the personal digital assistant (PDA), are used because of ease of use, quickness, and accessibility. Lastly, the findings suggest that an information specialist should participate in increasing the searching skills of students.