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Orange County EMS System/Orlando Regional Medical Center

Orange County EMS System and Orlando Health Orlando Regional Medical Center

The Orange County EMS System (OCEMS) is comprised of (8) ALS EMS agencies that participate in centralized medical direction. All together these agencies include approximately 2400 EMTs and paramedics and respond to over 200,000 EMS calls per year.  The community served by the OCEMS System consists of approximately 1.4 million permanent residents, and 75 million annual visitors. Areas of interest include a busy international airport, several of the world’s largest theme parks, and multiple collegiate and professional athletic stadiums and venues.

The service delivery models represented within the system include (7) fire-based agencies, and one private ambulance provider. The system aero-medical program providing scene responses is operated by Orlando Health.

Medical Direction:

System-wide medical direction is provided by the Orange County EMS Office of the Medical Director (OMD). Dr. Christian Zuver, Dr. Desmond Fitzpatrick and Dr. Danielle DiCesare are full-time EMS physicians that oversee the day-to-day activities of the EMS office including the OCEMS On-line Medical Control base station. In addition, Drs. Alexa Rodriguez, Christine Van Dillen, and Chris Hunter provide additional physician oversight of the system.

The EMS Fellowship Faculty:

  • Christian Zuver MD, FACEP, Program Director
  • Christine Van Dillen MD, FACEP, Associate Program Director
  • Desmond Fitzpatrick MD, FACEP, Associate Program Director
  • Danielle DiCesare, MD
  • Christopher Hunter MD, PhD

Fellowship Activities:

The EMS Fellow functions as an Assistant Medical Director. Given sufficient time to accommodate, the Fellow is expected to perform the following duties:

  • Learn to be a diverse leader in EMS Medicine through participating in high fidelity simulation
  • Provide assistance to the EMS Medical Directors in the areas of education, research, system development and quality improvement
  • Develop educational programs for EMS providers to help meet re-certification requirements
  • Respond to scenes and participate in the pre-hospital medical care of patients with provided EMS physician vehicle
  • Attend and/or carry out confidential case reviews and maintain confidential records as part of a quality improvement program
  • Participate in ongoing research projects or develop and complete individual scholarly projects
  • Participate in the education of EM residents during their EMS rotation
  • Participate in disaster planning and exercises
  • Respond to large-scale disasters as part of the Central Florida Urban Search and Rescue team
  • Participate in NAEMSP medical director course
  • Attending FAEMSMD meetings
  • Opportunity to train and fly with Aircare 

The “EMS Physician Fellow” is a fully funded, full-time employment position with the Orange County Government. Clinical hours are not a component of the fellowship; clinical work is available in a variety of venues in Central Florida. Clinical hours should be limited to no more than 60 per month. 

The OCEMS fellowship aspires to train competent, caring EMS physicians that will thrive in medical director or academic positions. To develop leaders, a strong focus will be placed on junior faculty development, interpersonal skills, and participation in national meetings. It is imperative the fellowship adds to the growing literature creating the evidence-based practice that guides prehospital care and will emphasize the production of quality research and peer-review publication.

Application Process:

Interested candidates should email a CV, (2) letters of recommendation and a letter of intent to [email protected] beginning July 1st through September 15th. Interviews will be held in Sept and mid-October. In accordance with current institutional guidelines candidates should expect web-based interviews. Only a selection of applicants will be invited for an interview.

FAQ:

A letter of intent is statement that explains why you want to be an EMS physician and describes what your future career plans entail.

Letters of Recommendation do not need to be in the SLOE format.  One LOR is required from EM program director.

Requirements: Our fellowship only accepts EM board eligible physicians.