Marc Eckstein is an Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of University of Southern California, and the Director of Prehospital Care at the Los Angeles County/University of Southern California Medical Center. Dr. Eckstein also serves as the Medical Director of the Los Angeles Fire Department. A former New York City paramedic, he has over 20 years experience in EMS. He is responsible for introducing major changes in the Los Angeles EMS system, including tiered dispatch, 12 lead ECG, waveform capnography, and standing field treatment protocols, and cardiac centers.
After obtaining his Bachelor of Science Degree with a major in microbiology from Cornell University in 1985, Dr. Eckstein obtained his Doctor of Medicine from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York in 1989. He completed his residency training in Emergency Medicine at the Los Angeles County/University of Southern California School of Medicine Medical Center in 1993, after serving as Chief Resident during his fourth year of training.
Dr. Eckstein then became the Director of Prehospital Care at LAC/USC Medical Center in 1993 and was appointed as an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine. He became the Medical Director of the Los Angeles Fire Department in 1996, and was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California in 2000.
Dr. Eckstein is the Co-Principal Investigator for the Los Angeles Prehospital Stroke Screen study, which was incorporated into the 2000 American Heart Association Guidelines, and the Field Administration of Magnesium for Stroke (FAST-MAG) study, which is a multi-million dollar, multi-center, NIH funded prehospital stroke trial. He is a certified instructor in WMD with the Office of Domestic Preparedness, as well as an instructor in ACLS, PALS, and ATLS. He has published over 75 peer-reviewed articles, abstracts, and book chapters, and lectures around the world on EMS and disaster preparedness topics.
