Speakers and faculty members

A.J. Heightman, MPA, EMT-P, is the editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Emergency Medical Services (JEMS) and Conference Chair of the International JEMS/EMS Today Conference and Exposition. Prior to his position at JEMS, A.J. was EMS Director for a large EMS office in the United States that serves 110 different ambulance districts and a regional advanced MEDCOM communications system. He then went on to serve as Operations Director for a large ambulance system in Pennsylvania. He is a graduate of Temple University (Philadelphia, PA) and received his Master’s Degree in Public Administration from Lehigh University.

MD PhD. Prehospital Emergency Medicine Physician. Advanced Cardiac, International Trauma and Advanced Disaster Life Support, Helicopter Emergency Medical Services (HEMS) Instructor. Incident Command System WS, NAEMSP, USA.  Emergency Medicine Professionals and Expert Net Associated Coordinator. REPUR/SESCAM-Castilla La Mancha Health Service. Fixed Wind and HEMS Work Group Coordinator AETAM-Spanish Society of Emergency Medicine (SEMES). SESCAM-EMS /HEMS / Castilla-La Mancha, Ciudad Real (1983-). Castilla-La Mancha University Collaborator Professor.Author  SiMuLe (Simulation in Multiple Injury Incidents -MCI- on interactive model Work Shop). Associated Editor “Emergencias” Journal of SEMES  (-2016). Author ≈120 papers, book chapters, MCI Simulation Director.

Anne Kristine Bergem is MD from the University of Oslo 1997. She became a specialist in clinical psychiatry in 2006. She is educated in assessment of violence from molde College in 2007. Grouptherapist from Institute of Group Analysis in Oslo in 2008 and Executive Master of Management from BI, the Norweigan School of Management in 2012.

Tony Rudd is a Stroke Consultant at St Thomas’ Hospital London UK, the National Clinical Director for Stroke with NHS England and the London Stroke Clinical Director. He is Professor of Stroke Medicine at Kings College London and leads the stroke team at the Royal College of Physicians developing the National Clinical Guidelines for Stroke and running the National Stroke Audit. His research interests are stroke rehabilitation, organisation of care and quality improvement and he has over 300 peer reviewed publications. He is a past president of the British Association of Stroke Physicians and is Hon Vice President of the Stroke Association. He was awarded a CBE in the Queens birthday honours in 2013

Carmen Camacho Leis is Emergency Physician in SAMUR Civilian Protection in Madrid. She is currently Chief of Emergency Medical on call and Head of Secretary Training Units in SEMES (Spanish Society of Emergency Medicine). She holds a master’s degree in both Emergency Medicine and in Management and Direction of Emergency Services. She has spent four years as Head of Training Unit and two years as Head of Human Resources in SAMUR Civilian Protection in Madrid. Large experience as Instructor of International Trauma and CPR Education Programmes in Spain. Several congress participations as speaker, together with publications in international scientific journals regarding trauma and CPR. Associate Professor of Universidad Complutense de Madrid and contributor in other postgraduate Emergency Medicine programmes.

David is the director of the Prehospital Care Research Forum at UCLA, and field paramedic with Allina EMS. He is a PhD candidate and senior lecturer at Monash University. David serves as assessment and credentialing chair of the newly created International Paramedic Registry (IPR) and is the editor of EMS World’s Spanish language Revista. He has over 33 years of active EMS street experience. David is a site visitor for the US Committee on Accreditation and senior facilitator for the NAEMSE-NREMT Evaluating Student Competency Workshops. Recent awards include a 2017 NAEMT Presidential award, the 2016 Pinnacle Leadership award, a 2012 EMS 10 Innovator award, and the 2011 prestigious Minnesota Colleges and Universities Educator of the Year award.

Doris Østergaard, is Professor in Medical Education and Simulation, and Head of the Regional Simulation Center, CAMES – Copenhagen Academy for Medical Education and Simulation, in the Capital Region of Denmark. The activities in CAMES are mainly related to postgraduate training for health professionals at a national, regional or hospital level.

Head of Training, Research and Quality Care Department of SAMUR Protección Civil– Madrid (Emergency Medical Services from Madrid) Manager of SAMUR Protección Civil– Madrid during 11 years (2003 – 2014) 31 years experience as emergency physician. Magister in Safety Administration. Honor Medal of the Royal Academy of Medicine of the University of Valladolid (Spain). More than 100 scientific works published or communicated to congresses. Experience in the management of several terrorist attacks of the terrorist band ETA Person in charge of the Prehospital Medical device in the terrorist attack of March 11 in Madrid in 2004, and the Barajas Airplane Crash at 2008. Author of the first prehospital thoracotomy in Spain.

DR Fionna Moore is Medical Director for South East Coast Ambulance Service. Fionna has served a as Chief Executive Officer of the London Ambulance Service, which is the largest public ambulance service in Europe. Joining the Service in 1998 as the first Medical Director Fionna has worked closely with the Service with responsibility for Clinical Governance, Clinical Audit and Research, and the Service’s Cardiac and Trauma Care strategies

Freddy K. Lippert, MD, Associate Professor, FERC, is CEO of the Emergency Medical Services in Copenhagen, Denmark. The EMS Copenhagen covers a population of 1.7 million, i.e. one third of the Danish population. The EMS Copenhagen includes the following: Emergency Medical Dispatch, ambulance services including physician manned mobile critical care units, psychiatric mobile unit, a medical hotline 24/7, responsibility and coordination of medical preparedness on behalf of all hospitals in the Capital Region.

Fredrik Folke is Associate Professor and Head of Research at the EMS Copenhagen, Denmark, with focus on prehospital emergency care, out- of-hospital cardiac arrest, public access defibrilation, and acute cardiac care. He has worked with epidemiology for more than a decade with a special focus on cardiac arrest and resuscitation. Besides reasearch, Fredrik is working as a senior cardiologist at Copenhagen University Hospital Gentofte, Denmark.

Dr Gayathri completed her basic degree at St.George’s, London and is an Emergency Medicine Associate Consultant at Singapore General Hospital. As the former chief resident of the Singhealth Emergency Medicine program, she is interested in medical education, pre-hospital EMS, community and global health. She is interested in improving systems of care especially in low resource setting. Together with Prof Marcus Ong, they conducted a 2 day consensus meeting to discuss pre-requisites to help developing EMS systems achieve the GRA 10 steps. She is actively involved in overseas humanitarian projects and strongly believes that inter specialty and inter profession collaboration, research and education is required for humanitarian work to be effective and sustainable. In 2015, together with the Singapore Armed Forces, she was part of the Ministry of Health team that went forward to provide medical aid during the Nepal earthquake. Annually, she brings medical students to the inaccessible, mountainous regions of Nepal; with the aim of improving the systems of emergency care in these regions. She has recently achieved the Healthcare Humanitarian Award in Singapore. At home, in Singapore, she is the vice-secretary of the Association of Women Doctors’ of Singapore and helps promote the community CPR program within the Indian community.

Dr Ian Maconochie FRCPCH FCEM FRCPI FERC PhD. Consultant in Paediatric Accident & Emergency Medicine. St Mary’s Hospital, Imperial Academic Health Sciences Centre, London

Currently Registrar of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, and Chair for the paediatric section of the European Society of Emergency Medicine.
He is ILCOR co-chair for Paediatrics, ERC Board member and Resuscitation Council UK paediatric group member.
He was involved in the setting up of the Association of Paediatric Emergency Medicine for the UK and Ireland (APEM), and in training for the UK and European curricula for paediatric emergency training, and is past President of the Research arm of APEM, and for the Paediatric Emergency Research Network UK and Ireland.
He has been a Visiting Professor to Queen Margaret Children’s Hospital in Perth, Australia, is an Honorary Associate Professor in the University of Cape Town, South Africa, and is a Visiting Fellow to the Centre of Reviews and Dissemination, University of York. He has authored over 100 papers, is Deputy editor of the Emergency Medicine Journal and is keen on cricket!

James Ward has been Medical Director of the Scottish Ambulance Service since January 2014. He graduated from Glasgow University in 1987 and subsequently trained as a GP, working in practice for 18 years and being elected a Fellow of the Royal College of GPs in 2006. He moved into full time medical management in 2009 as Medical Director of NHS Western Isles. Since joining Scottish Ambulance Service his interests have extended to include the organisation of prehospital emergency care. He chaired the scoping group that developed Scotland’s Out of Hospital Cardiac Arrest Strategy, launched in 2015.

Since 2012, Dr. García del Águila has held the position of Health Care Delivery Manager of the EMS (EPES 061) in Andalucía, a Spanish Region with more than 8,500,000 inhabitants. His wide experience in emergency medicine goes back to 1995, and he has worked as an international consultant to create national EMS in various countries, e.g. Turkey, Bulgaria and El Salvador. Dr. García del Águila is a member of the Executive Board of the Spanish Resuscitation Council.

Lars S. Rasmussen, is Professor of Emergency Medicine and Consultant in Anaesthesia, Department of Anaesthesia, Center of Head and Orthopaedics, Rigshospitalet, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. His Ph.D. and doctoral thesis were focusing on long-term effects of anaesthesia on brain function but in recent years, his research has increasingly been dealing with resuscitation and trauma.

Linn Andelius is a physician and PhD student at the Emergency Medical Services Copenhagen, Denmark. Her primary research field is out-of-hospital cardiac arrest and public access defibrillation. Last year’s winner of Best Abstract Audience Award at EMS2018, Copenhagen and Best Abstract Award at AHA ReSS, Chicago for her work with app activation of volunteer citizens in prehospital cardiac arrests resuscitation.

Professor Marcus Ong is a Senior Consultant, Director of Research, and Clinician Scientist, at the Department of Emergency Medicine at Singapore General Hospital. He is also Associate Professor at Duke-National University of Singapore Graduate Medical School and a consultant for the Hospital Services Division at Singapore’s Ministry of Health.

Dr. Kudenchuk is Professor of Medicine in the Division of Cardiology/Arrhythmia Services at the University of Washington, and Medical Program Director of King County Medic One in Seattle, Washington. He is a cardiac electrophysiologist with a career-long interest in resuscitation, including antiarrhythmic drug therapies in cardiac arrest and widely published in these and other areas of cardiology and resuscitation science. He serves on the Editorial Board of Resuscitation.

Pierre Carli is professor and chairman of the EMS of Paris (SAMU de Paris) and the Anesthesiology and Critical Care Department of Hospital Necker. Pierre Carli is an expert in the area of the prehospital care, cardiac arrest, emergency and disaster medicine. He is President of French Resuscitation Council and Vice-President of SAMU- Urgences de France (the French EMS). Pierre Carli has furthermore been involved in the management of Paris terrorist attacks, the H1N1 outbreak, and the Ebola pandemic. In 2009, he was appointed Chairman of National Board of Hospital Emergencies by the Minister of Health

Rosa is a graduate nurse specialized in Emergency Care, also graduate in Social and Cultural Anthropology and currently Phd candidate. She holds two Master’s Degrees, in Management Health Services and Nursing Research. She has been Director of Nursing in SAMUR – Madrid for more than 15 years and Head of Training Unit for one year. Expert in Quality Improvement (ISO Auditor and EFQM Evaluator). Instructor in Patient Safety and Basic and ALS by ERC and AHA. She has been the author and co-author of more than 50 scientific papers and communications to congresses. Professor of the European and Complutense Universities of Madrid and participant in postgraduate Nursing and Medicine programmes. She has been directly involved in innovative projects, such as implementation of socio-sanitary procedures and the development of a Patient Safety Program, unique in the Spanish pre-hospital environment. She is especially proud of the procedure for detection of children at social risk or with suspicion of abuse, implemented in the Emergency Service SAMUR-PC since 2000.

Stefan Poloczek has been Medical Director of the Emergeny Medical Services in Berlin since 2011. Prior to this and during medical studies, he worked as an EMT.Stefan Poloczek is an anaesthesiologist and emergency physician and has extensive practical experience in the field of Emergency Medical Services. Stefan Poloczek holds a Masters degree in Public Health from 2003, with a thesis about the correlation between socioeconomic factors and the utilisation of EMS. Stefan Poloczek has worked in management of ADAC Air Rescue, a big HEMS operator, for several years and as head of the division for Infectious Diseases, Emergency Medicine and Emergency Preparedness in Health Care in the State Ministry of Health in Berlin. While undertaking this function, Stefan Polczek also acted as Head for the H1N1 pandemic task force. In 2011 he returned to Emergency Medical Services, where he was responsible for a system performing around 400.000 missions per year.