Benjamin S. Abella, MD, MPhil, a national leader in the study of sudden cardiac arrest and cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), is the Chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine for the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the Mount Sinai Health System. Dr. Abella leads the Department of Emergency Medicine’s clinical and basic research enterprise and upholds the high quality of emergency services across the Health System.
Dr. Abella joined Mount Sinai from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, where he has served as the William G. Baxt Professor of Emergency Medicine, Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Emergency Medicine, Director of the Center for Resuscitation Science, and Director of the Penn Acute Research Collaboration.
As one of the first investigators to develop quantitative methods to measure and assess CPR delivery, Dr. Abella has played a key role in helping to advance defibrillator technology to improve CPR performance. He has led numerous clinical studies on cardiac arrest and post-arrest care and has authored more than 280 published studies in leading medical journals.
Dr. Abella has served as Chair of the American Heart Association (AHA) national 3CPR Council and has created international guidelines for resuscitation care through his work with the AHA. He is the emergency care and CPR consultant to the National Basketball Association, and has worked with the United States Air Force in the development of post-arrest care protocols. In Philadelphia, he has led a longstanding community-based CPR training program for disadvantaged communities, which has trained more than 10,000 people in CPR delivery.
Dr. Abella received his MD from The John Hopkins University School of Medicine, earned a master’s degree in genetics from Cambridge University, and completed residencies in internal medicine and emergency medicine at the University of Chicago.