Edward Racht, MD
Medical Director, City of Austin/Travis County EMS
Edward M. Racht, M.D. is the Medical Director for the City of Austin / Travis County Emergency Medical Services System, a diverse group of Providers and Organizations including Austin – Travis County Emergency Medical Services, the Austin Fire Department, Austin – Travis County 911 Emergency Communications, multiple Public Safety Agencies, fifteen first responder fire departments and EMS agencies and a Corporate Response Group made up of twenty-two regional corporate response teams.
Dr. Racht has been involved in Emergency Medical Services for over twenty years. He received his Medical degree from Emory University in Atlanta and completed his residency at the Medical College of Virginia. Before relocating to Texas, he was an Assistant Professor and Associate Chief of the Medicine Section of Emergency Medical Services at the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond. He was Medical Director for multiple career and volunteer EMS agencies, Fire Departments and the Richmond Police Department SWAT team. He was appointed by two Governors of Virginia to three successive terms on the State EMS Advisory Board.
Dr. Racht is a Clinical Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School. Appointed by then-Governor George Bush, Racht has served as the Chairperson of the Governor’s EMS & Trauma Advisory Council for the State of Texas since it’s inception in 1999. He has also been extensively involved with the American Heart Association at the local, affiliate and national level. He has been active in International EMS, serving as a consultant to the World Bank and as the American founder of the Vladivostok and Moscow, Russia EMS Training Centers.
Dr. Racht serves as the Medical Advisor for the NHTSA Educational Standards Project, the coordinator of the Take Heart Austin Cardiac Arrest Initiative and serves on multiple national and local committees and advisory boards. The City of Austin / Travis County EMS System was recently cited in the Institute of Medicine’s report on Emergency Medical Services as an example of effective regional collaboration, a philosophy near and dear to Racht’s practice of medicine.
In 1999, Dr. Racht was named EMS Medical Director of the year for the State of Texas. In 2000, he was named Volunteer of the Year for the Capital Area Division of the American Heart Association, and in 2004 he received the American Heart Association’s Paul Ledbetter MD Physician Volunteer of the Year Award. He was also featured in a cover article in JEMS magazine on a “New Breed of Medical Directors” in July 1997.
Dr. Racht is married to Cheryl, a wonderful mom and an accomplished nurse and they have three very high-maintenance, absolutely amazing children – Twins Brandon & Taylor and their big brother Harrison.