Dr. Carol Cunningham was appointed State Medical Director for the Ohio Department
of Public Safety, Division of EMS in July 2004 and is a board certified emergency
physician at Akron General Medical Center and an assistant professor of emergency
medicine at Northeast Ohio Medical University. She is the EMS Medical Director
representative on the National EMS Advisory Council (NEMSAC) and serves on the
Ohio Medical Coordination Plan Committee.
Dr. Cunningham received her medical degree and completed an emergency medicine
residency at the University of Cincinnati. She has seven years of experience as a flight
physician, eleven years of experience as a tactical EMS medical director, and is a fellow
in the American Academy of Emergency Medicine and the American College of
Emergency Physicians.
Dr. Cunningham completed the National Preparedness Leadership Initiative at the
Harvard Kennedy School of Executive Education and the Homeland Security Executive
Leadership Program at The Naval Postgraduate School & The U.S. Department of
Homeland Security Center for Homeland Defense and Security. She is the 2012 recipient
of the American Academy of Emergency Medicine’s James Keaney Leadership Award.
In addition to her continued duties as an oral board examiner, Dr. Cunningham was
appointed to the American Board of Emergency Medicine (ABEM) EMS Executive
Committee in 2014 after 4 years of service as an item writer on the historic ABEM EMS
Examination Task Force. She is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of EMS
(JEMS), a contributing editor for the EMS Insider, and has served on several committees
and panels at the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies and the Department of
Health and Human Services’ Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
Dr. Cunningham is the co-principal investigator for the NASEMSO Model EMS
Clinical Guidelines project, the NASEMSO physician representative working with the
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) on the National EMS
Education Standards Implementation Team, and served as a member of the Education
and Workforce Committee of the NEMSAC and the EMS Program Steering Committee
of the National Fire Academy Board of Visitors. She also serves on the Department of
Homeland Security (DHS) Science & Technology Directorate’s First Responder
Resource Group, the EMS Support Team of the Department of Homeland
Security/Federal Emergency Management Agency (DHS/FEMA) National Integration
Center Strategic Resource Group, and the Committee for Tactical Emergency Casualty
Care’s Board of Advisors.