LYNN P. ROPPOLO, M. D. was born in Inglewood, California to a large Catholic Filipino family, the youngest of six children. Shortly after high school, she pursued a degree in nursing and briefly worked as an Intensive Care Nurse (ICU). She went on to medical school at the University of California, San Diego where she met her husband of almost ten years. She did a 4-year Emergency Medicine residency at the George Washington University in Washington, DC. Her mini-fellowship during her residency focused on disaster medicine and pre-hospital care. She joined the Emergency Medicine faculty at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in July, 2002 and currently serves as the Assistant Residency Program Director, and Assistant EMS Medical Director for the Dallas Area BioTel (EMS) System.
Dr. Roppolo works clinically in the Emergency Department at Parkland Hospital where she feels the patients, medical students, and residents make her job worthwhile. Most of her academic time is spent doing residency related activities, research, and writing. After at least two years of blood, sweat, and tears, she published her first textbook Emergency Medicine Handbook: Critical Concepts for Clinical Practice, published by Elsevier, 2007. She was fortunate to have Dr. Peter Rosen, who has published the most textbooks in EM, serve as her mentor and co-editor. Dr. Roppolos primary research interests have been in the area of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). She was the principal investigator of a recent study comparing the standard 3-hour CPR course to a newly developed 30-minute course for laypersons. Both courses are products of the American Heart Association (AHA). The results of this investigation found that CPR performance (including long term retention) by subjects from both courses were similar. These findings will be published in the August 2007 issue of Resuscitation. She was the principal investigator of a dispatcher-assisted CPR study. This research found that agonal breathing and thus cardiac arrest detection increased by 10% after the implementation of a new protocol that she developed. Preliminary results of this research were presented at the annual AHA meeting in November 2004. She was also the lead author of another article entitled Modified cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) instruction protocols for emergency medical dispatchers: rationale and recommendation; published in Resuscitation, May 2005. This paper, written in collaboration with colleagues from the Council of Standards for the National Academies of Emergency Dispatch (NAED), recommends that emergency dispatchers focus primarily on continuous chest compressions instead of the traditional airway, breathing, circulation protocol of cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
Dr. Roppolo spends most of her free time with her husband Mark and their four children. She gave birth to their first son in November 2004 and healthy triplets in October 2006. Although four children ages 2 and under can be quite a challenge, she wouldnt trade it for the world and feels very grateful to be so blessed. Although her family is undoubtedly her top priority, she continues to be dedicated to her full-time work at UT Southwestern.
