Robert F. McCormack, UB professor of emergency medicine and chief of service, emergency medicine, for the Kaleida Health System, has been appointed chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. He served as interim chair since January.  

The announcement, which was made by Michael E. Cain, vice president for health sciences and dean of the medical school, brings to 16 the number of new chairs and chair-level appointees named by Cain since he became dean in 2006. These hires, Cain says, are a critical piece of his strategic vision for the medical school’s future, especially as the school’s new building, which will open in 2017, takes shape on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus.

A native of Long Island, McCormack received a BS in chemistry from McGill University and an MD from the SUNY Health Sciences Center at Brooklyn. He completed his residency in emergency medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine’s Jacobi Medical Center and was chief resident. He received an MBA, with honors, from UB’s Executive MBA Program. He has attended the Association of Academic Chairs of Emergency Medicine’s Chair Development Program and Harvard Medical School’s Leadership for Physician Executives.

Following his residency, McCormack was an instructor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Boston University’s School of Medicine. In 1996, he joined the UB medical school as an assistant professor of clinical emergency medicine. He served as vice chair of emergency medicine from 2009-14.

McCormack’s research interests include subarachnoid hemorrhage, deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism diagnosis and treatment, cardiovascular emergencies including cardiac exercise stress testing by emergency physicians, emergency department management and resident education.

He has published peer-reviewed articles in his areas of interest and has lectured nationally and internationally. He participates in several national committees and associations, including the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine, American College of Emergency Physicians and American Academy of Emergency Medicine, and he serves as an oral examiner for the American Board of Emergency Medicine.