Gregory Ciottone

Gregory Ciottone (born 1965) is an American physician who specializes in disaster medicine and emergency management. Ciottone is the editor-in-chief of the textbook originally named Disaster Medicine,^[1] and then re-named Ciottone's Disaster Medicine in its 2nd edition ^[2] Ciottone is an associate professor of Emergency Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and is currently director of the Disaster Medicine Division at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.^[3]

Early life and education

Ciottone was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up outside Boston. He attended secondary school at St. Mark's School, and went on to earn his bachelor's degree at Colby College where he double-majored in Biology and Chemistry and was elected Phi Beta Kappa. In 1991 he received his MD from the University of Massachusetts Medical School, 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. He currently resides in Westminster, Massachusetts with his wife Amalia and their children.

Experience and vision

During his career, Ciottone has built experience that includes serving as a flight surgeon for a rescue helicopter system, an Emergency Physician in level-1 Trauma Centers, as well as performing disaster field work in more than 30 countries around the world . He has also served as commander of one of the first federal disaster medical assistance teams into Ground Zero during the World Trade Center disaster on 9/11/2001.^[4][5] More recently, he led a team into Haiti following the 2010 earthquake and continues to work in that impoverished country providing humanitarian relief.^[6] He assimilated that experience to develop the groundwork for a new specialty, disaster medicine, designed to define the parameters by which disasters are prepared for, and victims of disaster are treated. Ciottone's approach to disaster medicine has always been from a global perspective, actively participating in the development of preparedness and response systems for domestic and international terrorism, as well as working to create enforceable standards of care for international disaster response, particularly in the developing world. His work and teachings have been geared towards finding evidence-based solutions to address these issues,^[7] and the use of disaster preparedness and response as diplomacy.^[8]

In 2009, while working in conjunction with Mikhail Gorbachev and the Gorbachev Foundation towards improved disaster preparedness and healthcare infrastructure in Russia, Ciottone served as a personal envoy from President Gorbachev to the U.S. Governmental agency, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC).^[9] As an acknowledgement of his expertise, Ciottone was named an Implementing Partner of the United Nations Development Program. This prestigious title is given to select international experts, allowing them to work as consultants to the family of United Nations organizations. Through this role Ciottone became Editor for the UN training module “Disaster Management for Terrorist Events.”

In 2011, 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. Later, he was named by the Russian Federation Ministries of Education and Science as an approved evaluation expert for the New Eurasia Foundation in the field of disaster medicine, as defined within the framework of Resolution No. 220 of the Russian Federation Government. He also worked with the US-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission through the Emergency Situations group. Ciottone's work has led to advances in the integration of disaster response systems on a global level.^[10][11]

Select awards and honors

In 1995 Ciottone was selected to lead the Washington D.C.–based American International Health Alliance (AIHA) Emergency Medicine Task Force for the former Soviet Union. In 1997, 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, and was later appointed Disaster Medicine Fellowship Director for the International Atomic Energy Agency in Geneva Switzerland. In 1998, Ciottone was appointed Director of the AIHA EMS and Disaster partnership program in Minsk, Belarus.

After the 9/11 attacks, Ciottone won an official citation from the Massachusetts Senate for his work at Ground Zero during the federal response, and was personally thanked by Tommy Thompson, the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services at that time. In 2002, Ciottone was selected as medical director for the Tactical EMS training program at the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Academy in Quantico, Virginia, and in 2003, he was appointed certification director for the Tuscan Emergency Medicine Initiative in Florence, Italy. In 2007, 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.^[12]

Ciottone was then appointed editor-in-chief of the 1st edition textbook Disaster Medicine, published by Elsevier/Mosby in 2006,^[13] which became the best-selling textbook in the field, both domestically and internationally. In 2015, the second edition of the book was released, renamed Ciottone's Disaster Medicine.^[14] Ciottone has gone on to give the Keynote Address or Featured Speaker presentation at numerous international conferences.^[15][16][17] Recently he has served as a subject matter expert for CNN, with one of his interviews on the Ebola outbreak being named one of the 16 "Best of 2014" stories worth watching by CNN.^[18]

References