Collier EMS medical director earns Florida Medical Association honors

Dr. Robert Tober Dr. Robert Tober, a 30-year member of the Collier County Medical Society and medical director of Collier County Emergency Medical Services, received the Roy M. Baker, M.D. Award for 2009 from the Florida Medical Association. The award is presented to one doctor in Florida for outstanding leadership in the provision of emergency medical services.

“Dr. Tober continues to impress our membership with his unremitting dedication to the field of emergency medicine,” says Joseph Gauta, M.D., president of the Collier Medical Society board of directors. “Our community has seen his extraordinary achievements in the form of improved first-response time and programs that streamline cardiac care intervention.”

Dr. Tober has managed the community’s emergency medical services needs since 1973. Because of his efforts, Collier County has one of the lowest cardiacarrest response time records in America, an average three minutes from door to emergency room. The county also boasts a 53 percent success rate in the number of cardiac-arrest patients who return to spontaneous circulation through paramedic intervention, compared to a national average of 6 percent to 10 percent.

Dr. Tober broadened his influence in 1986 when he joined the governing board on EMS education and became an affiliate faculty member of the American Heart Association. In 1999, he was elected president of the Florida College of Emergency Physicians, and within a year he launched the Code-Save-A-Heart Program, which has received international attention. He later initiated the Code- Save-A-Brain Program to attack acute stroke injury as fast as possible.

But Dr. Tober’s greatest triumph was in 2005, when he created the Pit Crew Concept for dealing with patients in cardiac arrest. The choreographed approach to arrest management resulted in Collier County EMS/FIRE and all Collier first responders gaining a return of spontaneous circulation in 53 percent of cardiac arrests in 2008.

This past june, Dr. Tober received the Raymond H. Alexander, M.D. EMS Medical Director of the Year Award from the Florida Department of Health, and in March he was honored with the American Heart Association’s Dr. Pascotto Golden Heart Award. 