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Ray Swienton

College of Public Health: Institute for Health Management and Mass Destruction Defense

Posted in: Directory

Last updated: Oct 10, 2007 - 11:51:37 AM

Emergency Management Coordinator

University of Georgia
Athens, GA 30602-
706.542. (voice)
706. (fax)

Educational Background

As a young U.S. Air Force officer, he trained in Emergency Medicine (EM) between 1989-92 and soon thereafter became Clinical Operations Director for the Department of EM at the U.S. Air Force Wilford Hall Medical Center in San Antonio (Lackland AFB) and its Joint Military Medical Command (JMMC) Residency in Emergency Medicine. In that busy emergency department (ED) with its annual volume of 75,000 patients, he rapidly gained enormous experience and reputation in administrative, quality assurance and risk management, eventually becoming the Risk Management Advisor to the U.S. Air Force (USAF) for EM issues. In 1996, he was recruited to become the President of Coastal Physicians of the West, an EM management company with annual budgets in excess of $100 million involving oversight of nearly 1,300 physicians and their practices.

In 2002, he was recruited to UT Southwestern where he assumed a lead role in the development of the National Disaster Life Support Educational Consortium (NDLSEC) and he soon became a lead editor for both the Basic (BDLS) and Advanced Disaster Life Support (ADLS) courses adopted by the American Medical Association (AMA) and other organizations. In the summer of 2003, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) was seeking to develop and promulgate a nationally-standardized course for training a proposed Medical Reserve Corps (MRC), a major initiative of the Bush administration. Dr. Swienton soon became a key collaborator with the Assistant Secretary of Health under DHHS Secretary Tommy Thompson, launching the Core Disaster Life Support (CDLS) for these purposes in March 2004. The CDLS course, a work that Dr. Swienton almost single-handedly developed, is a brief introductory course that is analogous to a CPR course � one that any lay person can take. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) subsequently awarded the AMA a large grant to administrate the nationwide promulgation of Dr. Swienton�s CDLS course.

In conjunction with Dr. Scott Lillibridge at the UT School of Public Health in Houston, Dr. Swienton recently secured a large grant ($4.4 million over two years) from the U.S. DHHS Health Resources Services Agency (HRSA) to deliver BDLS and CDLS training across Texas. HRSA has helped to promote these courses across other states and, in turn, Dr. Sweinton has been instrumental in helping to promulgate BDLS and CDLS across a dozen other states ranging from Connecticut, Ohio and Virginia to North Dakota, Louisiana and New Mexico.

Many of Dr Swienton�s publications, training tactics, and media interactions have helped to alter medical policy. He is a well-known figure among the applicable leadership of national organizations, ranging from the AMA, the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) and the National Association of EMS Physicians to the American Nurses Association, the Society for Critical Care Medicine and the American College of Surgeons. He has personally trained thousands and thousands of health care workers and his programs have trained tens of thousands to date. As a result, he received the 2004 University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center Emergency Medicine Public Service Award and a very strong letter of commendation from the U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Richard Carmona, for his activities.

In addition to his significant contributions to national public service and homeland security prepardeness, Dr. Swienton is uniformly considered one of the finest physicians that any of his co-workers have ever known. At Parkland Hospital�s extremely busy trauma centers, nurses, residents and colleagues all grade him at the �A� level for his ability to teach at the bedside, his extraordinary bedside manner and his ability to care for individual patients while managing an extremely busy ED. He is considered a role model clinician by many of the young doctors in training.

In addition to his talents at the bedside, he is a sought-after lecturer who, among a multitude of national audiences, has personally trained key members of many pivotal federal agencies, including the FBI, Homeland Security, U.S. Secret Service, White House Medical Unit (& other national leaders).

Roles and Responsibilities

Dr. Ray Swienton oversees one of the nation�s largest academic units dedicated to EMS, Homeland Security and Disaster Medicine (EMS, HS & DM) involving 12 core faculty and 6 fellows. The unit oversees operations and training for the regional BioTel (EMS) System (a centralized EMS program that includes over 3,000 firefighters, EMTS and paramedics from the fire departments for the City of Dallas & 12 surrounding cities) and several other jurisdictions in the Dallas area. The Section on EMS, HS DM also provides medical direction for the Dallas Police Department and the Dallas Metropolitan Medical Response System (MMRS) for anti-terrorism as well as medical support services for the regional office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The Section also provides co-direction of a major Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Exemplar Center for Public Health Emergency Preparedness and it helps to manage a large National Institutes of Health (NIH) Resuscitation Research Center.

Professional Affiliations

Associate Professor of Surgery and Emergency Medicine and Co-Director, Section of EMS, Homeland Security and Disaster Medicine
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and the Parkland Health & Hospital System;
Medical Director, Dallas Metropolitan Medical Reserve Corps & Colonel, Texas Medical Rangers

Selected Publications

Medical Response to Terrorism. Keyes DC, Burstein JL, Schwartz RB, Swienton RE (Co-Editors) Lippincott, Williams and Wilkins, Philadelphia 2005; pp 320-328.
Basic Disaster Life Support (BDLS?) Provider Manual. AMA CDPER Committee: (alphabetical order) Coule PL, Dallas C, James JJ, Lillibridge L, Pepe PE, Schwartz R, Swienton RE. AMA Press. Chicago, 2003.
Swienton RE, Coule P: Chapter 1: All-Hazards Course Overview and DISASTER Paradigm. Basic Disaster Life Support (BDLS?) Provider Manual. AMA CDPER Educational Committee: (alphabetical listing) Coule PL, Dallas C, James JJ, Lillibridge L, Pepe PE, Schwartz R, Swienton RE. AMA Press. Chicago, 2003
Swienton RE, Hawkins M: Chapter 2: Natural and Accidental man-Made Disasters. Basic Disaster Life Support (BDLS?) Provider Manual. Editors: Dallas C, James JJ, Lillibridge L, Pepe PE, Schwartz R. AMA CDPER Educational Committee: (alphabetical listing) Coule PL, Dallas C, James JJ, Lillibridge L, Pepe PE, Schwartz R, Swienton RE. AMA Press. Chicago, 2003 (Chapter authors cited as contributors)
Advanced Disaster Life Support (ADLS?) Provider Manual. Editors: (alphabetical listing) Coule PL, Schwartz R, Swienton RE. AMA Press. Chicago. Version 2.0; Sept 2003.
Swienton RE, Coule P: Chapter 1: The RED Survey and DISASTER Paradigm. Advanced Disaster Life Support (ADLS?) Provider Manual. Editors: (alphabetical listing) Coule PL, Schwartz R, Swienton RE. AMA CDPER Educational Committee: (alphabetical listing) Coule PL, Dallas C, James JJ, Lillibridge L, Pepe PE, Schwartz R, Swienton RE. AMA Press. Chicago. Version 2.0 submitted September 2003
Coule P, Swienton RE: Chapter 2: MASS Triage. Advanced Disaster Life Support (ADLS?) Provider Manual. Editors: (alphabetical listing) Coule PL, Schwartz R, Swienton RE. AMA Press. Chicago. Version 2.0 submitted September 2003
Swienton RE: Chapter 9: ADLS Skills Stations. Advanced Disaster Life Support (ADLS?) Provider Manual. Editors: (alphabetical listing) Coule PL, Schwartz R, Swienton RE. AMA Press. Chicago. Version 2.0 submitted September 2003
Core Disaster Life Support (CDLS?) Provider Manual. Editors: (alphabetical listing) Blackwell T, Coule PL, Fowler RL, Krohmer J, Swienton RE. AMA CDPER Educational. AMA Press. Chicago. Draft due December 2003.