Emergency : Real stories from Australia's emergency department doctors

Every day across Australia, specialist emergency physicians do extraordinary things under immense pressure.

The stakes are high; everyone gets pushed to the limit.

Lives are saved, patients die. Some staff manage the stress, others burn out. The ED demands a lot of its practitioners. They have to work through whatever medical emergency they encounter: a man who has been trapped in a rubbish compactor, a teenage girl in anaphylactic shock, a woman howling in labour while behind the curtain another life is coming quietly to an end.

The doctors must deal with high emotions, battle the constant patient backlog and make clear, considered, life - or - death decisions in an often chaotic environment.

These are the doctors' stories from the front line.