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EMS Faculty Page

National Course Directors

Darren Braude, MD, EMT-P

Professor
Emergency Medicine and Anesthesiology
University of New Mexico School of Medicine
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Medical Director, The Difficult Airway Course: EMS

Dr. Braude is Professor of Emergency Medicine and Anesthesiology and the Tim Fleming Endowed Professor of EMS at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine. He is the EMS Section Chief and Director of the EMS Fellowship Program in the Department of Emergency Medicine. Dr. Braude spent 10 years as a Flight Physician and Air Medical Director.

Currently he is a Medical Director of several agencies including Rio Rancho Fire Rescue and the UNM EMS Academy. In addition, he remains active in the field through the UNM EMS Physician Field Response Program. Dr. Braude is author of Rapid Sequence Intubation and Rapid Sequence Airway, 2nd edition: An Airway911 Guide, has nearly 50 peer-reviewed publications, is a regular contributor to EM:Rap and speaks nationally and internationally on airway topics.

Dr. Braude is Medical Director for The Difficult Airway Course: EMS and all other EMS programs offered by First Airway.

Michael T. Steuerwald, MD

Associate Medical Director, The Difficult Airway Course: EMS

Dr. Steuerwald is an internationally recognized expert in prehospital and emergency airway management, as well as an acclaimed innovator, educator and researcher within these fields. He was an active EMS provider for over 20 years, most recently having served as Medical Director and flight physician with the University of Wisconsin Med Flight program. Currently, Dr. Steuerwald focuses on prehospital airway education, largely through continuous improvement work on our course offerings.

Dr. Steuerwald is Associate Medical Director for The Difficult Airway Course: EMS, and all other EMS programs offered by First Airway.

Regional Course Directors

Cory Cox

AirMed Outreach Coordinator
Flight Paramedic
University of Utah AirMed
Salt Lake City, Utah
West Regional Course Director

[email protected]

Fred Ellinger, Jr., NREMT-P

Owner, SafeTec Training Services
Flight Paramedic, MidAtlantic MedEvac
Pennsylvania and New Jersey
Mid-Atlantic Regional Course Director

[email protected]

James Habstritt, BHSc, EMT-P

Program Director
Professional Medical Associates
Western Canada Regional Course Director

[email protected]

Carl Haentjens

Critical Care Practitioner
Resuscitation Officer
EMTACCS
Waasmunster, Belgium
Regional Course Director: Belgium, France, Netherlands, Luxemburg

Carl is a Belgian based prehospital care enthousiast. He is actively involved in the prehospital critical care in his region.

His main points of interest within this area are cardiac arrest, airway management and major trauma.

Both working clinically, as well as being strongly involved in teaching & quality improvement, he succeeded in increasing cardiac arrest survival numbers substantially over the last decade through a dedicated program for his region.

As Airway management is the cornerstone of the management of every critical patient, Carl is passionate to get these necessary skills to every single provider. Every provider should be able to give the care he would want for his own family member. In order to get everyone on board, Carl finds it very important for an instructor to have the skills to distill a complex skill or problem to its essentials and to translate it into easily understandable language.

Besides The Difficult Airway Course: EMS, Carl is also an active course director for several programs, amongst which ALS & AMLS, PHTLS, EPC,… and teaches at several University Colleges.

Michael Keller

Owner/Lead Faculty
Camden Education Unlimited

Paramedic
Field Internship Preceptor
Lincoln County EMS

Professor Emeritus
Department for EMS Education
Gaston College, Dallas, North Carolina

Southeast Regional Course Director

Estêvão Lafuente, MD

Associate Professor
Emergency and Critical Care Medicine
CESPU – Cooperativa Ensino Politécnico e Universitário, Portugal
Medical Director
ENFARTE - PlanoSaude
Regional Course Director - Portugal, Spain, Gibraltar, Andorra

Estêvão is Medical Director and responsible for the operability of one of the Portuguese VMERs – Rapid Medical Emergency Vehicles, having also performed operational functions for more than 20 years.

He is Intensive Care and ICU director since 2000, and is a senior consultant in intensive care medicine. Associate professor and responsible for the discipline of emergency and critically ill patients at CESPU. Coordinator of an American Heart Association CIT and Instructor for FCCS-SCCM Courses.

Joey Loehner, EMT-P, RN

Director of Quality Management
EMSRx
Waxahachie, TX

Clinical Education Manager
Trans Aero Medevac
Carlsbad, NM

Rudy Princi, EMT-P

EMS Community Educator
Department of Emergency Medicine
Stony Brook University
Stony Brook, New York
Northeast Regional Course Director

[email protected]

Jamie Todd, Dip IMC BEd BSc (Hons) MSc MCPara NAEMT

Enhanced Care Paramedic SCAS BASICS
Global Education Director: The Difficult Airway Course: EMS™
Regional Course Director: The Difficult Airway Course: EMS™
United Kingdom

Jamie Todd is a Pre-Hospital Care Consultant for numerous industry sectors. He was in the first group of paramedics in the United Kingdom to receive a Bachelor’s Degree in Pre-Hospital Care.

His advice when it comes to airway management is to always know the basics, and have them mastered to your very best ability. “In fact we call them ‘essentials’ rather than ‘basics’ as they will get you out of trouble almost every time,” he says. Prior to his career in Emergency Medicine, Jamie trained as a science teacher and worked in wilderness skills instruction. His favorite part of the job is the moment when he can see everything click for students.

Jamie has combined his EMS and wilderness skills in interesting ways. He has taken journalists around Mongolia for three months, and worked a ski race to the magnetic North Pole.

[email protected]