Eric Rasmussen (physician)

Eric Rasmussen
Born	March 1957 (age 59) Sacramento, California, USA
Education	Stanford University
Occupation	Physician
Spouse(s)	Demi
Children	Melissa Elaine Rasmussen, Faith Emily Rasmussen

Eric David Rasmussen (born 1957) is an American physician specializing in methods for global disaster response and their intersection with modern medical ethics. Rasmussen spent 25 years on active duty with the US Navy pioneering the specialty of humanitarian medicine inside the military,^[1] and has worked for more than three decades to improve healthcare within highly vulnerable populations in war zones and in the aftermath of natural disasters.

Between 1995 and 2014, he worked to develop protocols, tools and techniques now used in humanitarian operations. Many of these were initiated during a series of international disaster response demonstrations he directed^[2] called Strong Angel held in 2000, 2004, and 2006.^[3]

On retiring from the Navy in 2007 he was selected by the Executive Director of Google.org to become the founding CEO of the 2006 TED Prize called InSTEDD, now a successful NGO. As of 2016 he remains Chairman of the Board of Directors at InSTEDD.^[4]

In 2013 Rasmussen was appointed to serve as CEO of Infinitum Humanitarian Systems (IHS)^[5] where, in addition to continued work in disaster informatics and developing engineering techniques for providing clean drinking water in slums, he leads the global disaster response team for the Roddenberry Foundation supported by the Star Trek franchise. In August 2014 he was appointed Core Faculty in both Medicine and Global Grand Challenges at Singularity University within the NASA Ames Research Center.^[6]

Early life and education

Rasmussen was born in Sacramento, California, and attended Palm Springs High School in Palm Springs, California. He enlisted in the Navy at age 17 and spent seven years as a Sonar Technician^[7] aboard nuclear submarines (USS GATO, SSN-615 and USS SILVERSIDES, SSN-679, before leaving the Navy to attend St. John's College in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He left St. Johns to join the molecular genetics staff at GenBank, a part of Los Alamos National Laboratory.

From Los Alamos, he was selected in 1985 as founding Director of the American University of Les Cayes, which was then being established in Haiti and which is now part of the American University of the Caribbean. While working in Haiti, Rasmussen was accepted to Stanford University, where he completed his undergraduate degree and entered Stanford University School of Medicine.

Career

Rasmussen graduated from Stanford as a Doctor of Medicine (MD) with Research Honors in 1990,^[8] then completed a residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas (Parkland Hospital). He re-entered the Navy as Chief Resident in Medicine at the Navy Medical Center in Oakland, California after becoming Board-certified in Internal Medicine in 1993. In 1996 he was appointed Fleet Surgeon to the US Navy’s Third Fleet.^[9]

After a Navy career that included serving as Chairman of the Department of Medicine at the Naval Hospital near Seattle, Washington, he retired from the Navy in 2007 and accepted an offer from Google.org to become the founding CEO of InSTEDD,^[10] a humanitarian informatics NGO founded by Dr. Larry Brilliant from his TED Prize in 2006. Innovating in both technical and social systems, the InSTEDD team worked with the Mekong Basin Disease Surveillance Consortium to create tools that collected, mapped, and disseminated health informatics more rapidly than emerging infections could spread, and every tool has been released as free and open-source. Rasmussen led InSTEDD for three years before shifting in 2010 to Chair of InSTEDD's Board of Directors.

His other appointments include Research Professor in Environmental Security and Global Medicine at San Diego State University^[11] and Affiliate Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Washington School of Public Health. His international appointments include Senior Lecturer at the International Disaster Training Academy Bonn, Germany (Bundesamt für Bevölkerungsschutz und Katastrophenhilfe)^[12] and Lecturer at the Academy for Disaster Reduction in Beijing, China.

Humanitarian service

In 1995, Rasmussen was appointed a Principal Investigator in Humanitarian Informatics at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and served 9 years in that position while remaining an active clinical physician in the Navy. His work at DARPA focused on machine-based language translation for medical support to humanitarian operations and resulted in three deployments to the Bosnian War. That work led to further education and the awarding of a European Masters in Disaster Medicine from the UN's World Health Organization Affiliate Centre European pour la Medecine des Catastrophes (CEMEC) in San Marino. His subsequent efforts in the Refugee Camps at Kakuma in northern Kenya and the Meheba Angolan Refugee Camp in Zambia later led to a teaching position with the UN Office of the Coordinator for Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) in Geneva. He was appointed a Special Advisor in Humanitarian Informatics to the US Office of the Secretary of Defense in 2004.

More recent deployments as a civilian disaster response team leader have included the earthquake in Haiti in 2010, Superstorm Sandy in New York in 2012, Supertyphoon Haiyan in the Philippines in 2013 and the 2015 Nepal Earthquake.

Humanitarian initiatives

As one of the early proponents of collaborative civil-military operations in disaster response, Rasmussen’s publications include clarifying the optimal role of the military in disaster response, establishing a shared response culture with NGOs for disasters, incorporating survivors in response designs, and leaving beneficial infrastructure like power generation, communications capability, and water purification systems behind. Other specific topics have included:

• Using free and open-source tools for mapping and communication^[13]
• Legislation that allows military humanitarian responders to leave critical response infrastructure behind with the affected population, such as area lighting, broadcast transmitters, and electrical generators, when the humanitarian mission is concluded.
• Language in the documents for humanitarian field demonstrations and real-world operations that described humanitarian support competence to be as important as combat operations competence for those charged with humanitarian support responsibilities. That language was later echoed in Section 4.1 of Department of Defense Instruction 3000.05 in November 2005.^[14]
• The concept of radical inclusion, which Rasmussen has described as a meme borrowed from the Burning Man Arts Festival incorporating ideas from every contributor for evaluation, no matter how unlikely the source.
• The concept of demonstrations in humanitarian support research^[15] – where problems from recent humanitarian responses are collected from those who suffered them, and field trials then are held in similarly austere conditions to allow a range of possible solutions to those problems to be tried without fear of failure and with collaboration an intentional focus.
• A brief and very casual 10-20-30 Document^[16] of recommendations for civil-military interaction in disaster support. It is a listing of advice collected from a wide range of international civil-military participants who were asked, “What would you want to tell those coming behind you about your experiences?” The name derives from the paper’s design as 10 Commandments, 20 Recommendations, and 30 Advisories and is focused on the military perspective.

Other

In addition to his past and current work in humanitarian support, Rasmussen is also:

• The author of the Stanford Affirmation,^[17] a replacement for the Hippocratic Oath now recited by new physicians in a number of medical schools around the globe. The original illuminated manuscript of the Affirmation was calligraphed by the San Francisco Art Institute and signed by Rasmussen and ten other influential signatories, including Dr. John Steward, then Dean of the School of Medicine at Stanford. That mounted manuscript^[18] now hangs in the office of the Dean of Students at Stanford School of Medicine.
• The author of the Reference Card for Military Medical Ethics,^[19] created in the aftermath of revelations from the prisons at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib and carried by military medical professionals into the theaters of Iraq and Afghanistan beginning in 2005.

Awards

• 2014 - Fellow of The Explorers Club^[20]
• 2007 - Presidential Legion of Merit^[21] (Department of Defense)
• 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003 - Letters of Commendation, Office of the Secretary of Defense (total of 8 Letters)
• 2006 - Chief Resident’s Award for Faculty Excellence in Clinical Leadership, Naval Hospital Bremerton
• 2003 - 2005 Campaign and Expeditionary Medals for Iraq, Afghanistan and the Global War on Terrorism^[22]
• 2005, 1979 - Humanitarian Service Medal (with star for Second Award)^[23]
• 2004 - Teacher of the Year, Department of Medicine, Naval Medical Center, San Diego
• 2004, 2001, 1998 - Meritorious Service Medal, with two stars for subsequent awards (Department of Defense)^[24]
• 2003 - Navy Commendation Medal^[25]
• 2003 - Sustained Excellence in a Principal Investigator (Annual Capstone) - DARPA
• 2003 - Joint Service Achievement Medal (Department of Defense)^[26]
• 2003 - Presidential Unit Citation^[27]
• 2002 - Navy Unit Citation^[28]
• 1997 - Fellow of the American College of Physicians
• 1996 - Surface Warfare Insignia^[29]
• 1979 and 1976 -Submarine Dolphins Breast Insignia, US Nuclear Submarine Service (SSN-615, SSN-679)^[30]
• 1978, 1980 - Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal (two awards)^[31]
• 1976 - Meritorious Unit Commendation^[32]
• 1976 - Navy Expeditionary Medal^[33]

Publications

Most publications can be found here.

A subset not able to be archived there are listed here:

1. Rasmussen, E. Mycoremediation in the Fukushima Disaster Zone, White Paper, presented at Fungi Perfecti, Shelton, Washington, 1 October 2012.
2. Rasmussen, E. Research to Operations: Bringing Concepts to Deployment, White Paper presented at The Wilson Center for International Scholars, Washington, DC, 13 September 2012.
3. Rasmussen, E. REDD and Smits Model Reforestation, The Solutions Journal, online edition, 17 January 2011, http://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/node/827
4. Rasmussen, E. Lessons from Haiti: The Power of Community and a New Approach to Disaster Management, The Solutions Journal, online edition, 17 November 2010, http://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/node/807
5. Murphy R, Riddle D, Rasmussen E. Robot-Assisted Medical Reachback: A Survey of How Medical Personnel Expect to Interact With Rescue Robots, Research in Robot and Human Interactive Communication, pp301–306, 13th IEEE International Workshop, 20-22 Sept. 2004.
6. Gage A, Murphy R, Rasmussen E, Minten B. Shadowbowl 2003: Lessons Learned from Reachback with Rescue Robots, IEEE Robots & Automation Magazine, 11(3): 62-69, September 2004.
7. Adkins M, Kruse C, Rasmussen E, et al. Experience Using Collaborative Technology with the United Nations and Multi-National Militaries: Rim of the Pacific 2000 Strong Angel Exercise in the Pacific, in Proceedings of the 34th Hawaiian International Conference on the System Sciences, 2001.
8. Adkins M, Kruse C, Rasmussen E, et al. Experiences Developing a Virtual Environment to Support Disaster Relief with the United States Navy’s Commander Third Fleet, in Proceedings of the 33rd Hawaiian International Conference on the System Sciences, 2000.
9. Rasmussen, E. Intracostal Anesthesia, in Saunders Manual of Medical Therapeutics, ed. Rakel, W.B. Saunders, 1996.
10. Rasmussen, E. Arterial Sampling, in Saunders Manual of Medical Therapeutics, ed. Rakel, W.B. Saunders, 1996.
11. Goad, W, et al. Nucleotide Sequences - '86/'87, IRL Press, Cambridge, UK, 1987.

References

1. San Jose Mercury News, 19 May 2004: http://media.wix.com/ugd/8b7f2d_e2e9c80257d149929dda9aa338caee58.pdf
2. San Jose Mercury News, 25 July 2004: http://media.wix.com/ugd/8b7f2d_bbee00ee3cc845839781f2b43573c489.pdf
3. Frontline article on Strong Angel: http://media.wix.com/ugd/8b7f2d_21179ed7ca8d4b3cba178dffa2807623.pdf
4. "Eric Rasmussen, MD". Instedd. 2013-01-24. Retrieved 2015-06-16.
5. "Eric Rasmussen, MD, MDM, FACP". IHS web site. Retrieved 16 June 2015.
6. "Faculty - Singularity UniversitySingularity University". Singularityu.org. Retrieved 2015-06-16.
7. DD214: http://media.wix.com/ugd/8b7f2d_2338f2658cbf4bd897f8090ea57984e6.pdf
8. Stanford School of Medicine Alumni directory: http://media.wix.com/ugd/8b7f2d_73582aa7eb1b4375a8e04d0539aa39e9.pdf
9. Publication citation as Fleet Surgeon: http://media.wix.com/ugd/8b7f2d_6d5f4c6d7bff4eff866888eb9e239612.pdf
10. "Team". InSTEDD Web Site. Retrieved 16 June 2015.
11. "Faculty & Staff || Graduate Program in Homeland Security". Homelandsecurity.sdsu.edu. 2015-05-26. Retrieved 2015-06-16.
12. "Bundesamt für Bevölkerungsschutz und Katastrophenhilfe - Sommerakademie 2014 - Informationen zur Sommerakademie 2014" (in German). Bbk.bund.de. 2014-07-28. Retrieved 2015-06-16.
13. SSTR Pentagon White Paper: http://media.wix.com/ugd/8b7f2d_3ac5eb0fa6be4e379515245a98df810e.pdf
14. DoDI 3000.05: http://media.wix.com/ugd/8b7f2d_43b42c89bd7f42efac1abeee4a9a33a6.pdf
15. SSTR Pentagon White Paper: http://media.wix.com/ugd/8b7f2d_ac289756f1c245aa8cb0984ff2f87768.pdf
16. 10-20-30 Document: http://media.wix.com/ugd/8b7f2d_9eafcedd8b2a47df93e478b3d97bf8ad.pdf
17. Stanford Affirmation: http://media.wix.com/ugd/8b7f2d_e5cc91d022dd4670a9b9407dfb876e6e.pdf
18. Stanford Affirmation (illuminated): http://media.wix.com/ugd/8b7f2d_6251f9b32a1c4810b397a4549f38331e.pdf
19. Reference Card for Military Medical Ethics: http://media.wix.com/ugd/8b7f2d_d59e66ded55d4f00b92f65b52432598c.pdf
20. Fellow Election Certificate: http://media.wix.com/ugd/8b7f2d_b26ad2d3ce764fef83f2a1b508b93808.pdf
21. DD214: http://media.wix.com/ugd/8b7f2d_3f634cf31128459dadd8159fabf8ef52.pdf
22. ibid.
23. ibid.
24. ibid.
25. ibid.
26. ibid.
27. ibid.
28. ibid.
29. ibid.
30. ibid.
31. ibid.
32. ibid.
33. ibid.