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September 4, 2007
Heilpern to chair Department of Emergency Medicine

By lance skelly

Katherine Heilpern has been named chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine. Heilpern, who begins her role Sept. 1, has served as interim chair for the past year during the absence of Arthur Kellermann, who has been serving as Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow in Washington, D.C. Kellermann was recently named associate dean for public policy at Emory School of Medicine.

“Katherine Heilpern is an energetic and innovative leader,” said Dean Thomas Lawley. “Her exceptional efforts to promote research and education in emergency medicine will be an incredible asset to the faculty, staff and residents in training at Emory, as well as the lives of the patients she touches each day.”

Heilpern received her undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia, and her medical degree from Emory School of Medicine. She completed her postgraduate training at Temple School of Medicine in Philadelphia, and received board certification in internal medicine and emergency medicine. After residency training, she served as a medical officer for the Indian Health Service and was stationed on the Navajo reservation.

Heilpern returned to Emory in 1996. She has served as assistant dean of medical education and student affairs, and vice chair for academic affairs in the Department of Emergency Medicine. Heilpern serves as a member of the American College of Emergency Physicians Academic Leader Program and is a board member of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine.

Heilpern recently was named president-elect of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine and selected to serve on the Institute of Medicine Board on Military and Veterans’ Health. Regionally, she serves on the State of Georgia Pandemic Influenza Planning Task Force and the board of the Georgia College of Emergency Physicians.

Heilpern’s research focus is the study of the interface between emergency medicine and infectious diseases. She is a site investigator for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s EmergeIDNet sentinel surveillance project on emerging infectious diseases.

The award-winning educator is a co-principal investigator with the School of Nursing on a federal training grant that teaches state-of-the-art didactic and procedural skills in emergency care to masters level nurse practitioner students.

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