Skip to Main Content

Divisions

Overview


EM Divisions

Emergency Medicine is a broad discipline that cares for the most vulnerable patients both inside and outside of the hospital walls. Emergency Medicine treats the most acute and sickest patients while, simultaneously, serving as the health delivery safety net for local communities. This means much of Emergency Medicine delivers care in transitional spaces where gaps in the current healthcare infrastructure exist. 

Reflecting both the mission of Emergency Medicine and the maturity off USF EM, our program is represented by a number of strong Divisions each with experienced and leading physician-scientists. Some of our Divisions have fellowships while others are moving in that direction. Other Divisions strengthen our overall ability to innovate and provide the best care to patients, while conducting research that will lead us into the future. 

Currently, our program is organized in the following way:

ED Administration and Operations: David Wein, MD serves as our system medical director and ensures high quality ED operations across our three sites (Davis Islands, Kennedy FSED, and the The TGH Outpatient Center/Brandon Healthplex. Our team of ED Medical Directors also serve as the faculty for the ED Administration/Operations Fellowship in partnership with the Muma School of Business Executive MBA program. 

Education (UME and GME): The Education section includes the development of our residency education curriculum (Grand Rounds) led by Dr. Jim Gillen, as well as our USF Morsani College of Medicine 3rd or 4th year student clerkship (led by Dr. Anish Zachariah) and the senior clerkship/MS4 clerkship under the direction of Dr. Jordan Beau. The education section also develops and supports rotations for USF PA students and other learners and works closely across all of our Divisions to develop high quality education opportunities. 

EMS, Event, and Disaster Medicine: We have an incredibly strong EMS Division that leads to the state, local municipalities and interfacility best practices for development and delivery of EMS and prehospital systems of care. In addition, our team provides care for the community at many large events and is involved in county and state wide disaster planning, management, and education. Our faculty includes the state EMS medical director (Dr. Angus Jameson), the Tampa Fire Rescue co-medical directors (Dr. Andrew Thomas and Dr. Rachel Semmons), the Pinellas County Medical Director (Dr. Angus Jameson), a BLS agency medical director (Dr. Stephanie Tershakovec), and the TGH Aeromed team medical director (Dr. Juliana Lefebre), as well as the Hillsborough County Medical Director for disaster management (Dr. Melissa Leming)

Pediatric Emergency Medicine: Our pediatric emergency medicine team is led by Dr. Jasmine Patterson and is undergoing exciting growth through a new TGH Women and Children's service line initiative. The Pediatric EM team delivers world class care every day.

Simulation: We partner closely, and lead, the University of South Florida Center for Advanced Medical Learning and Simulation (CAMLS). Emergency Medicine physician Dr. Haru Okuda serves as the CEO and executive director of CAMLS. Dr. Normaliz Rodriguez serves as an Associate Medical Director for CAMLS and also is our Interdisciplinary Simulation Fellowship Director. Our Residency Simulation program is led by Dr. Nicole Rettig. This strong team integrates simulation education into UME, GME, faculty and TGH staff learning while also conducting innovative research to drive the field forward. 

Social EM, Population and Global Health: USF Emergency Medicine has placed significant focus on the impact of structural vulnerability and social forces to drive drive differences in health care outcomes across populations. These impacts are seen in local populations and across the globe. Innovations in healthcare delivery, understanding of lived experiences, and examining/solving healthcare inequities are all topics that fall into the work of our Social EM, Population and Global Heath Division. Dr. Heather Henderson, a medical anthropologist, leads our Social EM section while Dr. Enola Okonkwo leads our global health and other social medicine areas (including refugee health and people in crisis). Dr. Jason Wilson is a physician-anthropologist and our group heavily leverages social sciences and medical anthropology to address social, population and global health problems.

Sports Medicine: Led by Dr. John Kiel and in close partnership with the USF Primary Care Sports Medicine program, our sports medicine division is made up of three EM-PCSM trained physicians. We operate an outpatient sports medicine clinic and athletic game day coverage. 

Toxicology: USF/TGH operates Florida Poison Control and our Toxicology Division is one of the largest in the state of Florida with three full time emergency medicine trained toxicologists. The busy service is also active in research and scholarly activity, as well as education for our medical students, residents, and many other learners. 

Ultrasound: Our Ultrasound Division is led by the Program Director and Ultrasound Fellowship Director, Dr. Charlotte Derr. The Residency Ultrasound Director is Dr. Allyson Hansen. The robust division trains ultrasound fellows to lead sonography into the future, provides clinical ultrasound during patient care, provides education to residents, medical students, fellows and other learners and participates in cutting edge ultrasound innovation such as resuscitation guided transesophageal echocardiography (one of the few national program participants).

Research: USF EM has both a 24/7 acute care research team (any drug, any device, any procedure, any time) and a strong interdisciplinary social science research team that works across multiple clinical and non-clinical spaces. Research funding comes from NIH, PCORI, HHS, and other external agencies. USF EM has multiple research trained faculty members (three medical anthropologists) and access to resources at USF and TGH to support investigator initiated projects and to assist in obtain external funding.