Meet our Faculty

Kevin Schulz, MD, FAEMS, FACEP

EMS Fellowship Program Director
Chief, Prehospital and Disaster Medicine Section
Clinical Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine
Assistant EMS Physician Director, Houston Fire Department
Medical Director, Memorial Hermann IRONMAN: Texas race series
Tactical Physician, Houston Police Department SWAT team

Kevin Schulz, MD, FAEMS, FACEP is a Clinical Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine and the EMS Fellowship Program Director at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth – Houston. Dr. Schulz has over 20 years of prehospital experience, starting as a volunteer EMT, continuing through his EMS Fellowship at McGovern Medical School and on to his current position as an Assistant EMS Physician Director of the Houston Fire Department. Dr. Schulz went to medical school at Drexel University College of Medicine, and completed his residency at Morristown Medical Center in Morristown, NJ. He then completed a two-year EMS fellowship at McGovern and stayed on with HFD and UTHealth after the completion of his fellowship. He is double-boarded in Emergency Medicine and EMS, and is a Fellow of the Academy of EMS (FAEMS) and a Fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians (FACEP). Dr. Schulz serves as the current President of the Texas Chapter of the National Association of EMS Physicians (NAEMSP) and Co-Chair of the NAEMSP Council of EMS Fellowship Directors. He also serves as the Medical Director of the Memorial Hermann IRONMAN: Texas series of races and Co-Chief of the Department of Emergency Medicine’s Prehospital and Disaster Medicine Section. He is active in residency and medical student education about EMS, and works with the UTHealth Center for Interprofessional Collaboration. He has been given an Adjunct Faculty Appointment at the Cizik School of Nursing at UTHealth for his contributions to mass casualty and prehospital education there. Dr. Schulz has given multiple presentations at national and regional meetings on EMS-related topics, most notably on the medical response to Hurricane Harvey in Houston.

He has a passion for prehospital care and for the education of the next generation of prehospital physician, and enjoys the satisfaction of watching fellowship graduates take on new and exciting roles in EMS.

Away from work, Dr. Schulz is passionate about travel, exploring new foods, cooking, tasting and collecting wine, and spending time with his wife Diana and children, Alex (4), and Theo (1.5). He has is also a rookie triathlete and is training for his first IRONMAN.

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Chris Souders, MD

EMS Fellowship Faculty
Adjunct Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine
Associate EMS Physician Director, Houston Fire Department

Chris Souders is a graduate of Baylor College of Medicine and completed his emergency medicine residency at the University of Rochester, NY. His EMS fellowship was completed with Baylor College of Medicine and the Houston Fire Department. After fellowship, he was chosen as the Associate Medical Director for the Houston Fire Department which he has held since 2003. Board certified in both Emergency Medicine and Emergency Medical Services, Dr. Souders’s primary responsibilities at HFD include dispatch protocol, quality improvement activities, and ePCR development and data analysis. Outside of the office, he enjoys traveling with his husband and exploring new places, food and wine.

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David Persse, MD, FACEP, FAEMS

EMS Fellowship Adjunct Faculty
Adjunct Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine
EMS Physician Director, Houston Fire Department
Public Health Authority, City of Houston
Tactical Physician, Houston Police Department SWAT team

Dr. Persse’s career in medicine started with ten years experience as a field paramedic and paramedic instructor in upstate New York and New Jersey. After receiving his pre-med training at Columbia University in New York, he then attended Georgetown University School of Medicine. Graduating with honors in emergency medicine from Georgetown, Dr. Persse then completed residency training in emergency medicine at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance, California. After residency, Dr. Persse completed a resuscitation research fellowship at the Ohio State University. Dr. Persse was then awarded a grant from the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine and completed fellowship training in emergency medical services and resuscitation at the Baylor College of Medicine. Following his EMS fellowship Dr. Persse became the Assistant Medical Director for the Emergency Medical Services system of Houston. He then returned to California to become the Medical Director of the Los Angeles County Paramedic Training Institute, and the Assistant Medical Director of the Los Angeles County EMS Agency. In 1996 Dr. Persse returned to Houston to assume the role of the Director of Emergency Medical Services for the City of Houston. In May of 2004 he was appointed by City Council as Houston’s Public Health Authority. He has been the lead author or co-author on over 50 peer reviewed journal articles.

Dr. Persse is also a member of the Board of Directors and Executive Committee for the South East Texas Trauma Regional Advisory Council and a previous Chair of the National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians. He is the recipient of the Keith Neely Outstanding Contribution to the National Association of EMS Physicians for his leadership during the Hurricane Katrina response, 2007, and the 2009 Michael K. Copass Award from the U.S. Metropolitan Medical Directors. He is a 2015 EMS Top 10 Innovator Award Winner from the Journal of Emergency Medical Services. Dr. Persse received an Honorary Doctorate in Humanities in Medicine from Baylor College of Medicine and was awarded the ACEP Outstanding Contribution to EMS Award in 2018. Dr. Persse is a Professor of Medicine and Surgery at the Baylor College of Medicine and Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at the University of Texas Medical School – Houston. He is also a Tactical Physician with the Houston Police S.W.A.T. team.

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