Emergency medicine is a complex specialty. This complexity derives from the breadth of clinical presentations, from the many interfaces with other systems and services, from the multidisciplinary and multispecialty nature of our practice, and from the pace of change and innovation inherent in what we do every day in clinical practice.

The science of complexity has attracted interest in the management world.1 Complexity is associated with cost, and with distraction of enterprises away from core activity and business. Managing complexity first requires understanding. A contracted visual representation of emergency medicine, which may contribute to that understanding, is shown here (figure 1).

Mind maps are visual tools designed to express the ideas of the individual or team.2 They are by their very nature a personalised image of a mental model. This mind map is built around the...]]> 2015-08-20T00:30:45-07:00 info:doi/10.1136/emermed-2014-203665 hwp:master-id:emermed;emermed-2014-203665 British Association for Accident and Emergency Medicine 2015-09-01 Images in emergency medicine 32 9 750 751