Kathy J. Rinnert, MD
Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine and GEMSS Fellowship Director
The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and the Parkland Health and Hospital System;
Associate Medical Director, Dallas Metropolitan Medical Response System (MMRS) for Anti-Terrorism and the Dallas Metropolitan BioTel (EMS) System, Dallas, TX
Dr. Kathy Rinnert, the GEMSS fellowship director, is herself a former EMS fellowship trainee, and today she is an internationally-recognized expert in preparedness and training for Weapons of Mass Effect (WME). In the late 1990's, as an Emergency Medicine faculty member at UT Southwestern, she developed master plans for the Dallas Medical Strike Team and the Parkland Health and Hospital System which later became national models and were aggressively cited, pursued and adopted after the events of Fall 2001. She has received numerous awards and commendations from entities such as the FBI and she has been used as a special consultant to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in terms of reviewing federal recommendations for preparations for WME. She made her first formal presentation about the GEMSS fellowship in conjunction with the FBI at the February 2001 national EMS State of the Science meeting and recruited her first fellow soon thereafter. She is currently the Chair of the Disaster Committee for the Dallas County Hospital District.
Paul E. Pepe, MD, MPH
Professor of Public Health, Surgery, Medicine and
Riggs Family Chair in Emergency Medicine,
The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas and the Parkland Health and Hospital System
Medical Director, the Dallas Metropolitan Medical Response System (MMRS) for Anti-TerrorismMedical, Director, The Dallas Metropolitan BioTel (EMS) System, Dallas, TX
Over the years, Dr. Paul Pepe has served as Emergency Medicine and Trauma consultant to various governmental agencies and entities such as the White House Medical Unit and the U.S. Secret Service or as a special consultant and advisor to agencies such as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (US DHHS) Offices of the Surgeon General (OSG) and the Assistant Secretary (OAS) for Public Health Emergency Preparedness (PHEP), the Federal Bureau of Investigation and multiple national media organizations (e.g., USA Today, ABC News, etc). He is the Medical Director for the Dallas Metropolitan Medical Response System and the Dallas Metropolitan EMS System. Prior to his recruitment to UT Southwestern and Parkland, he served as Commonwealth Emergency Medical Director for the state of Pennsylvania in the administration of Governor Tom Ridge, current U.S. Secretary for Homeland Security. It was at this time that he first formulated and proposed the concept of a GEMSS fellowship as an academic initiative. Even earlier, in the mid-1980's, he had already developed one of the first EMS fellowships and became a mentor to many EMS fellows and Assistant EMS medical directors who have now gone on to become successful EMS leaders in their own right throughout the United States. He was a co-founder of the National EMS Medical Director's Course that has now provided basic training to over two thousand EMS directors across the nation, and he is also a co-editor-in-chief for the American Medical Association - CDC Basic and Advanced Disaster Life Support courses. He was the first president-elect at the National Association of EMS Physicians and now serves as the liaison to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Center for Domestic Preparedness for the major U.S. urban municipalities EMS Medical Directors ("Eagles") Coalition.
