Susan Promes, MD, MBA

Dr. Promes is a tenured professor and chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center and Penn State College of Medicine, positions she has held since 2014. 

Dr. Promes earned an undergraduate degree from Washington University in St. Louis and received a medical degree from Penn State College of Medicine. She completed her residency training at Alameda County Medical Center, Highland General Hospital, where she served as chief resident. In 2012, she obtained an MBA from the University of California – Davis Graduate School of Management. 

Prior to her current role, Dr. Promes spent seven years at the University of California, San Francisco, serving as vice chair for education, emergency medicine residency program director, and director of curricular affairs in the GME office. Before that, she was at Duke University as the inaugural emergency medicine residency program director and director of the medical school capstone course. 

Dr. Promes’s scholarly work has focused on emergency medicine medical education and clinical guidelines for practicing emergency physicians. She has authored numerous peer-reviewed publications and edited multiple McGraw-Hill board review books to prepare physicians for the emergency medicine board exam. An internationally recognized leader in academic emergency medicine, Dr. Promes was chosen by SAEM to be the inaugural editor of their journal, Academic Emergency Medicine Education and Training, which debuted in January 2017. 

In 2020, she received the SAEM Hal Jayne Excellence in Education Award from the Society of Academic Emergency Medicine. More recently, in 2024, she was honored with the Judith E. Tintinalli Award for Outstanding Contribution in Education.