EM Clerkship Director
Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science
Rancho Palos Verdes, California
Founding member, fellow and master of the American Academy of Emergency Medicine (AAEM) and has served on its Board of Directors. She is a diplomat of the American Board of Emergency Medicine and is a Past-Chair of the Emergency Medicine Section of the National Medical Association.
She served Charles R. Drew University of Medicine & Science as faculty in the Department of Emergency Medicine from 1989-2007. When the Martin Luther King, Jr./Charles R. Drew Medical Center closed in 2007, she was the Emergency Medicine Residency Program Director. She currently serves as the Emergency Medicine Clerkship Director at the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine & Science. She retired from the Department of Health Services, Los Angeles County at the end of 2018. At the time of her retirement, she was an Adjunct Professor of Clinical Emergency Medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California.
She has received numerous teaching and nursing recognition awards throughout the years. In 2014, she was awarded The James Keaney Award by the American Academy of Emergency Medicine. Named after the founder of AAEM, this award recognizes an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to AAEM. In April 2018, she received the prestigious Master of the Academy of Emergency Medicine Award from the American Academy of Emergency Medicine, the first woman to receive the award. In 2022, Dr. Williams received the distinguished David K. Wagner Award of the AAEM.
In June of 2021, the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Emergency Medicine unanimously approved the first Academy Award to be named after a woman, “The Joanne Williams Award”.
Dr. Williams has lectured nationally and internationally on Emergency Medicine, Trauma Resuscitation and Critical Care topics and is published in Emergency Medicine and Trauma Care.
Disclosure(s): No financial relationships to disclose
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