Cathal O’Donnell,

Medical Director, National Ambulance Service, Ireland

Prof Cathal O’Donnell is the Medical Director of the  National Ambulance Service in the Republic of Ireland.

A medical graduate of University College Cork, Cathal completed his Emergency Medicine training in a number of Irish hospitals in Cork and Dublin, and subsequently completed a Clinical Fellowship in Emergency Medicine and Emergency Medical Services at the University of Toronto in 2005. During this time, he worked with Toronto EMS and the Ontario Air Ambulance Base Hospital Programme and also worked in St Michaels Hospital and Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in the city.

On completion of this, he returned to Ireland to take up a post as Consultant in Emergency Medicine at University Hospital Limerick.

Cathal became NAS Medical Director in 2011. Cathal has completed an MSc in Leadership at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI).

In 2017, Cathal was appointed Adjunct Clinical Professor in Emergency Medicine at the Graduate Entry Medical School, University of Limerick.

Head of the Training, Research and Quality Care Ervigio Corral Torres,

SAMUR, Spain

• Head of the Training, Research and Quality Care Department of SAMUR Protección Civil-Madrid (Emergency Medical Services of Madrid)
• Manager of SAMUR Protección Civil-Madrid (Emergency Medical Services of Madrid) for 11 years (2003 – 2014)
• 30 years of experience as an emergency physician.
• Master in Health Administration.
• Honor Medal from 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 by the terrorist group ETA
• Responsible for the prehospital medical device in the terrorist attack of March 11 in Madrid in 2004, and the Barajas air accident in 2008.
• As a clinical practice, author of the first prehospital thrombolysis in STEMI in his country, and of the first emergency thoracotomy on the scene in Spain.
• As a manager, he promoted ultrasound and blood tests in the prehospital emergency in Spain.

Medical Director Fionna Moore,

South East Coast Ambulance Service, United Kingdom

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 Lippert, Chairman of European EMS Leadership

Denmark

Freddy Lippert is a medical doctor and associate Professor University of Copenhagen and for 10 years CEO of the Emergency Medical Services in Copenhagen, Denmark. He is a founding member of The European EMS Leadership, The European EMS Congress and Founding member of the Global Resuscitation Alliance. His work and research focus at solving clinical challenges with a system approach using data, research and new technology. One of the results is a fourfold increase in survival from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest Denmark.

Medical director James Ward,

Scottish Ambulance Service, Scotland

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.

Markku Kuisma,

Medical Director, Helsinki Area EMS, Finland

Markku Kuisma, M.D., Associate Professor, is medical director of Helsinki Area EMS. He works for the Helsinki University Hospital (Hospital District of Helsinki and Uusimaa). His background speciality is anaesthesiology and he has 25 years experience in emergency medicine. He has passed European Masters in Disaster Medicine and he has a degree in Quality Management. He has been active in scientific research focusing on cardiac arrest, stroke and EMS system performance.

Martin Smeekes,

CEO EMS North Holland North, Netherlands

Martin went to Medical School in Amsterdam and was trained to be a GP and a Doctor in Occupational Medicine. In 2007 he completed his Master of Crisis and Disaster Management.

Martin worked in Occupational Medicine and combined working as a Doctor with being the CEO in Arbodienst Flevoland in the eighties and nineties. In 1996 he switched to EMS and Medical Disaster Management as CEO in Flevoland. From 2001 to 2006 he combined this with being the Chief Fire Commander in Flevoland. In 2007 Martin switched to North Holland North, a region with 650.000 inhabitants as CEO of EMS and Medical Disaster Management. From 2015 he is CEO of the total Safety Region North Holland North. Martin joined the EMS Leadership program in 2019 as board member of Ambulancezorg Nederland.

From 2008 Martin works close together with Rudy Koster, cardiologist of the AMC in Amsterdam in the Arrest Studies. Together with Rudy he developed the model of citizen AED. He is a author and co-author in many scientific papers.

Martin won the Public Safety Award in 2010 with Citizen AED in North Holland North; he won the Dutch Business Intelligence Award in 2015 for dashboarding in Call to Balloon.

Martins team went to Kopenhagen in May 2017 to do a workshop on Dashboarding and Citizen AED.

Medical Director Pierre Carli,

SAMU, France

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.

Medical director Stefan Poloczek,

Berlin Fire Brigade, Germany

Stefan Poloczek has been Medical Director of the Emergency Medical Services in Berlin since 2011. Prior to this and during medical studies, he worked as an EMT. Stefan Poloczek is an anesthesiologist and emergency physician and has extensive practical experience in the field of Emergency Medical Services. Stefan Poloczek holds a Master’s degree in Public Health from 2003, with a thesis about the correlation between socioeconomic factors and the utilization 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 Poloczek 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.

Head of the Prehospital Division Stephen J. M. Sollid,

Oslo University Hospital, Norway

Stephen J M Sollid is the head of the Prehospital Division at the Oslo University Hospital and a professor of prehospital critical care at the University in Stavanger. He is a trained anesthesiologist and has 16 years’ experience as a HEMS Physician in the Norwegian Air Ambulance and the Royal Norwegian Air Force search and rescue service. Prior to his current position he was the chief medical officer of the Norwegian Air Ambulance. In this position he was tightly involved in advancing research, development, education and innovation in prehospital critical care.

With a PhD in patient safety and risk management his research interests are mainly linked to safety, quality, and competence in prehospital critical care. He has been involved in establishing an international master’s program in prehospital critical care at the University in Stavanger and the development and implementation of a national bachelor program in paramedicine in Norway.

In his current position he is responsible for the largest prehospital service in Norway covering one third of the population in Norway.