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Gregory R. Ciottone, MD, FACEP |
From terrorist attacks to earthquakes and tsunamis, the past few decades have included a number of disasters globally. These disasters have short- and long-term impacts not only on the health care infrastructure and public health, but on society as a whole. The lack of a clear standard of care in international disaster response often leads to an inefficient and sometimes dangerous intervention on the ground. There are both logistical and ethical ramifications to this wide-reaching problem.
Join our keynote lecturer Dr. Ciottone as he describes how communities deal with the challenges of recovery from a disaster and the provision of continued access to care. Learn how historical precedent is the backdrop for the current understanding that it is imperative the international community approach global disaster preparedness and response in a more organized and evidence-based way.
About the Speaker:
Dr. Ciottone is a practicing Emergency Physician with more than 20 years' experience in academic, clinical, and international medicine. He is a recognized expert in Disaster Medicine, Emergency Management, and International Healthcare Infrastructure Development.
Current Positions
Dr. Ciottone is a U.S. Board-Certified Emergency Physician, and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, where he currently is the Chair of the Disaster Medicine Section. He is also the Director of the Division of Disaster Resilience at Harvard Medical Faculty Physician, where he works clinically in the Department of Emergency Medicine. Dr. Ciottone is the Founder and Director of the first-ever Disaster Medicine Fellowship Program at Harvard Medical School. In addition to these appointments, Dr. Ciottone holds a Visiting Professorship in Disaster Medicine at Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium and the Universita del Piemonte Orientale in Italy.
Recent Awards and Honored Positions
1990 - 2000
Dr. Ciottone graduated the University of Massachusetts Medical School in 1991, receiving the Society of Academic Emergency Medicine "Excellence in Emergency Medicine" award. He then completed his Emergency Medicine Residency at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, and was selected by the faculty and his peers as Chief Resident. In 1994 Dr. Ciottone was selected to head the Division of International Disaster and Emergency Medicine at the University of Massachusetts, and in 1995 he was selected to lead the Washington DC based American International Health Alliance (AIHA) Emergency Medicine Task Force for the former Soviet Union. Also in 1995, he was selected as Commander of the federal Disaster Medical Assistance Team (DMAT) Massachusetts-2, a Level-1 response team of the National Disaster Medical System. In 1997, Dr. Ciottone was elected Fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians, and in 1998, he was appointed Disaster Medicine Fellowship Director for the International Atomic Energy Agency in Geneva Switzerland. Dr. Ciottone also became Disaster Medicine/EMS Fellowship Director at the University of Massachusetts in 1998. In 1999, Dr. Ciottone was appointed Director of the AIHA partnership program in Minsk, Belarus.
2000 - Present
In 2000, Dr. Ciottone was appointed Director of the Division of Disaster and Emergency Medicine at Harvard Medical Faculty Physicians, where he was also appointed Medical Director for Emergency Management. In 2001, Dr. Ciottone won an Official Citation from the Massachusetts Senate for his work at Ground Zero during the 9/11/2001 federal response, and was personally thanked by Tommy Thompson, the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. In 2002, Dr. Ciottone was selected as Medical Director for the Tactical EMS training program at the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Academy in Quantico, VA. Also in 2002, Dr. Ciottone was named Chairman of the International Emergency Medicine Section at Harvard Medical School. In 2003, Dr. Ciottone was appointed Certification Director for the Tuscan Emergency Medicine Initiative in Florence, Italy. In 2004, he was appointed Medical Director for the Operational Medicine Program, Office of Security and Investigations, United States Citizenship and Immigration Service, Department of Homeland Security, Washington, DC. Dr. Ciottone was then appointed Editor-in-Chief of the textbook Disaster Medicine, published by Elsevier/Mosby in 2006. Also in 2006, Dr. Ciottone was selected as one of "America’s Top Physicians" by the Consumer Research Council of America. He was again selected in 2008 and 2009.
In 2007, Dr. Ciottone was named "EMS Physician of the Year" by Central Massachusetts Emergency Medical Services (EMS), and in 2008 he was the "Spotlight" for the Phi Beta Kappa national publication Keynote Reporter. Dr. Ciottone was named Founding Principle of the Russian American Medical Center project in Tver, Russia in 2008, a project shepherded by Mikhail Gorbachev. Also in 2008, the World Champion Boston Red Sox honored Dr. Ciottone by having him throw out the Ceremonial First Pitch as part of the 9/11 remembrance ceremonies at Fenway Park. In 2009, while working in conjunction with Mikhail Gorbachev and the Gorbachev Foundation towards improved healthcare infrastructure in Russia, Dr. Ciottone served as a personal envoy from President Gorbachev to the U.S. Governmental Agency the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC). In 2010, Dr. Ciottone was named by the Russian Federation Ministries of Education and Science as an approved Evaluation Expert for the New Eurasia Foundation, as defined within the framework of Resolution No. 220 of the Russian Federation Government. Later in 2010, Dr. Ciottone was appointed Medical Director of the Child In Hand project in Haiti. In 2011, Dr. Ciottone was selected by USAID as one of two U.S. experts for consultation in Tajikistan on the epidemic of polio in the Central Asian Region, and other infectious disease epidemic threat preparedness and disaster response planning. Also in 2011, Dr. Ciottone was appointed to the European Master in Disaster Medicine Academy in Geneva Switzerland, an international disaster prevention and response policy institute operated through the Hôpitaux Universitaires de Genève. Recently, Dr. Ciottone was appointed Medical Director of the Be Like Brit Foundation, a program in Haiti shepherded by the Senatorial and Congressional delegations of Massachusetts.