Clemency Feted for Support of EMS Physician Education

By Dirk Hoffman

He received the organization’s Nancy Caroline Award for Mentorship and Education at the NAEMSP’s 2025 annual meeting Jan. 11 in San Diego.

The award is named after Nancy Caroline, MD, an EMS physician who was medical director of Freedom House, an emergency ambulance service that assisted underserved populations in Pittsburgh in the 1960s and 1970s. She was also the first medical director of Magen David Adom, Israel’s Red Cross Society, and was later called “Israel’s Mother Teresa” by colleagues.

It is awarded to a NAEMSP member who, through their actions, has demonstrated a relentless commitment to the mentorship of others within the EMS specialty.

“When I first became certified as an emergency medical technician, I studied using the textbook developed by Dr. Caroline,” Clemency says. “More than 25 years later, it is a unique privilege to receive this award named in her honor.”

Robert F. McCormack, MD, MBA, professor and chair of emergency medicine at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences says, “this award speaks to the Department of Emergency Medicine’s commitment to enhancing prehospital care on both the local and national level.”

Clemency, vice chair of academic and faculty affairs within the Department of Emergency Medicine, is an active EMS educator, researcher and medical director. He has served two terms on the NAEMSP Board of Directors. 

In a nomination letter for the award, a Jacobs School colleague described him as “a leading voice in EMS fellowship education since the recognition of EMS as a subspecialty,” and noted he has dedicated his life’s work to improving the field of EMS for clinicians and the patients they serve.

As founding program director, Clemency was responsible for the University at Buffalo’s EMS fellowship accreditation and the graduation of one of the first EMS fellows in the nation in the 2012-2013 academic year.

Since that time, UB’s program has trained 22 EMS physicians, 12 of which continue to practice in Western New York. The program provides robust experiences in field response, flight operations and research.

Residents and fellows in accredited training programs typically take an in-training exam each year. These national exams are typically administered by a national certifying or specialty professional organization.

These exams simulate a board certification exam and help residents and fellows, and their faculty members evaluate their preparation to take the board certification exam upon completion of the fellowship.

When EMS became a board-certified specialty in 2013, there was no such exam available for EMS fellows.

In collaboration with his colleagues, Clemency launched the Buffalo EMS Question Bank to prepare EMS fellows for their board examination. The Question Bank was successful, so Clemency, supported by the Council of EMS Fellowship Directors, created the EMS In-Training Exam (EMSITE).

Now in its 10th year, the EMSITE is used by 95% of the fellowship programs throughout the country to simulate the board certification exam. Scores on the EMSITE also help program directors benchmark their fellows’ preparation in comparison to fellows throughout the country.

Clemency has served as editor-in-chief of the EMSITE since its inception. In 2017, he was honored by the NAEMSP with its President’s Award for his development of the EMSITE.

“The EMSITE was created as a temporary solution. Now, a decade later, it has become a permanent fixture in the way EMS fellows are evaluated at programs across the country,” Clemency says.

“I would like to thank the NAEMSP. Its support has played a key role in my professional development and in the success of the EMSITE,” he adds.

The online resource Buffalo EMS Question Bank is intended to prepare physicians to pass the American Board of Emergency Medicine (ABEM) EMS subspeciality board certification exam.

A committee of predominantly EMS fellowship program directors creates the questions, which are peer reviewed and based on ABEM’s core content of EMS medicine and the certifying exam blueprint. The EMS Question Bank currently has more than 1,000 questions.

In a peer-reviewed article published in 2017 in the journal Prehospital Emergency Care, Clemency and his colleagues described the success of the program and the association between EMS Question Bank completion and passing rates on the EMS certification exam and demonstrated that use of the EMS Question Bank in 2015 was associated with a passing rate that was 12 percent higher than the national average.

The NAEMSP was formed in 1984 to serve as a resource and advocate for EMS physicians and EMS professionals.

Since its inception, NAEMSP membership has grown from a handful of dedicated founders from a cross-section of the U.S., to over 2,000 physicians, paramedics, nurses, administrators, educators, researchers and key EMS personnel.