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Medical Director | Indianapolis EMS
Dr. Mark Liao is the city’s 911 ambulance service medical director, an emergency medicine physician at Indiana University Health Methodist Hospital and a major in the U.S. Army Reserves. As the EMS medical director, he oversees, reviews and implements continual quality improvement of the medical care delivered by Indianapolis EMS’ paramedics and EMTs, which includes almost 300 employees. Those improvements include the Field Blood Transfusion Program, which equips specially trained paramedics with a military-type blood cooler and a warming device to deliver critically needed blood to someone who is traumatically injured, and the Community Paramedic Program, a medical team that reaches out to people who need help outside of emergency care.
Getting here: After college, Liao became certified as a paramedic in California, then decided to pursue medical school. “I distinctly remember interviewing at the IU School of Medicine Emergency Medicine residency in my fourth year of medical school when I fell in love with this city and the emergency medicine program here.”
First job: School nurse’s aide. “I showed up at my school nurse’s office and asked if I could be a school nurse’s aide. No such job or position existed, but it got me in the door to start learning about first aid, medical terminology and an early introduction to health care.”
Givebacks: Member of several committees and advisory groups related to disaster preparedness and emergency response
Influential moment: Responding to two serious “active shooter” events within a relatively short time, “which has profoundly impacted how I think about emergency preparedness, crisis response and resiliency.”
Advice: Don’t sell yourself short. “I think young people are constantly bombarded by what they ‘could do better’ or ‘should do better.’ But young people today are so aspirational, motivated and committed to service. I see it every time I meet new soldiers in the Army, and I have no fears that your generation will do great things.”•
Check out more Forty Under 40 honorees.
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