Kuppermann selected chair of Department of Emergency Medicine

Nathan Kuppermann, professor and vice chair for research in the UC Davis Department of Emergency Medicine, has been selected as chair of the department, effective Jan. 1.

“I am delighted that Dr. Kuppermann has agreed to assume the critical position of chair in our new Department of Emergency Medicine,” said Claire Pomeroy, Vice Chancellor for Human Health Sciences and dean of the UC Davis School of Medicine. “Dr. Kuppermann’s leadership skills, record of research productivity and clinical expertise are an exciting combination that will lead the department to even higher levels of academic accomplishment and excellence in patient-care services.”

Timothy Albertson, interim Executive Director of Clinical Care for UC Davis Health System and former acting chair of emergency medicine, said, "Emergency medicine is very fortunate to have an individual of Dr. Kuppermann’s national prestige who understands the role of UC Davis emergency medicine within UC Davis Medical Center and the academic community. The department is excited and pleased that Dr. Kuppermann has accepted this position. He is extremely well suited for the role of chair. I know that I can speak for the department and the Health System when I say we are looking forward to his leadership."

Kuppermann has more than 20 years of clinical, research and administrative experience in academic medicine. He began his career in 1985 as a resident in the Department of Pediatrics at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, where he served as chief resident from 1989-1990 before completing an Emergency Medicine Fellowship at Children’s Hospital in Boston and an MPH at the Harvard School of Public Health.

In 1994, UC San Diego School of Medicine appointed Kuppermann as an assistant professor, starting his academic career in pediatric emergency medicine. In 1995, UC Davis recruited Kuppermann to the emergency medicine faculty, where he has been ever since.

In 2001, Kuppermann helped begin the Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network (PECARN) as one of five principal investigators of the network and the first and current chair of the PECARN Steering Committee. The PECARN is the first federally funded multi-institutional network for research in pediatric emergency medicine. The goal of this network is to conduct meaningful and rigorous multi-institutional research into the prevention and management of acute illnesses and injuries in children and youth across the continuum of emergency medicine health care.

The PECARN is divided into five “nodes” and includes a total of 25 participating hospitals. Currently, Kuppermann serves as principal investigator of the Academic Center Research Node of PECARN, centered at UC Davis.

Kuppermann’s areas of research interest include i nfectious disease emergencies in children, the utility of laboratory tests in the evaluation of acutely ill children, the management of pediatric trauma, diabetic ketoacidosis-related cerebral edema in children, and the use of multivariate statistical modeling to develop clinical decision rules. Among many awards Kuppermann has received for his clinical, teaching and research work are the UC Davis School of Medicine Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research and Clinical Mentoring, a Fulbright Distinguished Scholar award, the Department of Emergency Medicine Academic Teacher of the Year Award, and the Department of Pediatrics Role Model Award.

He also serves as a reviewer for several medical journals, including The Annals of Emergency Medicine, Academic Emergency Medicine, and Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, and is on the editorial boards of the two main journals of his field, Pediatric Emergency Care and Clinical Pediatric Emergency Medicine.