In this article we analyse, via a critical review of the literature, the development of a relatively new medical specialism in the United Kingdom, that of emergency medicine. Despite the high media profile of emergency care, it is a low-status specialism within UK medicine. The creation of a specialist College in 2008 means that, symbolically, recognition as a full specialism has now been achieved. In this article, we will show, using a sociology of professions approach, how emergency medicine defined itself as a specialism, and sought to carve out a distinctive jurisdiction. While, in the context of the UK National Health Service, the state was clearly an important factor in the development of this profession, we wish to develop the analysis further than is usual in the sociology of professions. We will analyse the wider cultural context for the development of this specialism, which has benefited from its high profile in the media, through both fictional and documentary sources.