Chair, Professor

Deborah Baker Diercks, M.D., is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at UT Southwestern Medical Center. She holds the Audre and Bernard Rapoport Distinguished Chair in Clinical Care and Research.

A nationally recognized leader in the specialty, Dr. Diercks oversees the emergency medicine programs at Parkland Memorial Hospital and UT Southwestern University Hospitals, which together constitute one of the largest emergency medicine programs in the nation.

After receiving her undergraduate degree in microbiology and immunology from the University of California, Berkeley, Dr. Diercks attended Tufts University School of Medicine. She completed her residency in emergency medicine at the University of Cincinnati and joined the faculty of the University of California, Davis, where she was a major contributor to the growth and development of its emergency medicine programs. She also holds a master’s degree from the Harvard University School of Public Health.

Dr. Diercks has received funding from the National Institutes of Health, among other sources, for research on early management of acute coronary syndromes, the influence of gender on symptom characteristics, and utilization of cardiac biomarkers. She has held numerous leadership positions within the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine and was presented with the Society’s 2014 Advancement of Women in Academic Emergency Medicine Award. Additionally, Dr. Diercks is a Senior Associate Editor of the Annals of Emergency Medicine.