Vukich named emergency department chairman

Dr. David J. Vukich has been appointed to permanently head the University of Florida’s department of emergency medicine, the College of Medicine’s first dual-campus department.

The appointment will make Vukich the first Jacksonville-based department chairman. He also will have an office in Gainesville. Vukich directed emergency medicine for more than a decade while it was still a division of the department of medicine and led the effort to convert the division to full department status. He has served as the department’s interim chair for the past three years.

As chairman, Vukich manages the department’s educational, research and clinical operations, overseeing 43 faculty members, 45 residents, four fellows and four emergency departments.

His primary goal is to integrate the faculty, budgets, teaching and research programs at the four sites – located at Shands at UF, Orange Park Medical Center, and Shands Jacksonville’s Clinical Center and Pavilion (formerly University Medical Center and Methodist Hospital). He also expects to provide an excellent learning experience for medical students and to improve the quality and timeliness of emergency care in all locations.

Vukich earned his medical degree from the University of Colorado College of Medicine and completed his emergency medicine residency at Denver General Health and Hospitals. After serving in the U.S. Navy Medical Corps, he joined the UF faculty in 1984 and was instrumental in the development of the TraumaOne helicopter ambulance and the trauma center.

A past president of the Florida College of Emergency Physicians, he continues to be active in health-care politics in Florida.