Background
Dr. Kenneth Lavelle serves as Medical Director for Penn Tactical Solutions, providing physician oversight of the clinical content, protocols, and standards of practice that govern PTS training.
Dr. Lavelle is a board-certified emergency physician and a board-certified Emergency Medical Services physician through the American Board of Emergency Medicine, and a Fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians. He is a National Registered Paramedic and a New Jersey-certified firefighter, credentials he has held and exercised continuously since the early 1990s. His medical career began in pre-hospital care in 1987 and has spanned every level of the field from volunteer EMT through paramedic, EMS chief, attending emergency physician, and active medical director.
Dr. Lavelle holds active medical licenses in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, the District of Columbia, and Florida. He serves as Medical Director for American Medical Response across the District of Columbia BLS 911 system and across Virginia, Maryland, and New Jersey operations. Through East Coast Medical Consultants, he provides medical direction to multiple agencies serving a combined call volume of approximately 225,000 calls per year across a population of 2.1 million, including clinical care for major events, concerts, and professional sports through American Medical Response.
His operational and tactical medicine career carries the same depth. Dr. Lavelle serves as Medical Team Manager for Pennsylvania Urban Search and Rescue Task Force 1 and as Medical Director and Medical Team Manager for the Cape May County Regional Urban Search Team. He is a Task Force Physician with the New Jersey EMS Task Force, responding to major events across the state to assume medical command and control for patient care. He served as Tactical Physician for the Central Bucks Special Response Team for nearly two decades and continues to serve as an EMS Physician with the Bucks County Physician Response Team, one of three team physicians who respond county-wide for major events and provide advanced care at scenes.
Dr. Lavelle's clinical career includes attending emergency physician roles at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, where he also served as Chief Resident and Clinical Instructor of Emergency Medicine, and at Albert Einstein Healthcare Network, where he served as Deputy Chief of EMS and Medical Command Facility Medical Director. He served on the Editorial Advisory Board of EMS World Magazine.
His instructor credentialing covers the breadth of pre-hospital and tactical medical training. Dr. Lavelle holds current instructor status across NAEMT Tactical Emergency Casualty Care, NAEMT Prehospital Trauma Life Support, NAEMT Advanced Medical Life Support, NAEMT Emergency Pediatric Care, NAEMT Community Paramedicine, NAEMT EMS Safety, NAEMT Mental Health Resource Officer, AHA ACLS and PALS, PEPP, and Advanced HazMat Life Support including the Radiological Incidents specialty. He completed the NAEMSP Medical Director's Course and Practicum and serves as an Adjunct Instructor I with Texas A&M Engineering Extension.
His credentialing extends across hazardous materials, technical rescue, and CBRNE response, including Advanced HazMat Life Support and Radiological Incidents Instructor status, NJSP HazMat Operations and Train-the-Trainer credentials, FEMA US&R Medical Specialist equivalency, and an extensive portfolio of FEMA, TEEX, and CDP courses spanning radiological response, mass casualty management, hostile event response, bomb threat management, and critical infrastructure protection. He holds rescue technician credentials across rope, water, structural collapse, trench, vehicle, and confined space disciplines, and ERDI tender and contaminated water diving operations certifications.
Dr. Lavelle earned his medical degree cum laude from Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, completed his Emergency Medicine residency at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital where he served as Chief Resident, completed his paramedic training through the Ocean County College and Community Medical Center program, and holds a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He is currently completing a Bachelor of Science in Fire Science at Columbia Southern University.
Dr. Lavelle currently serves as Physician Case Reviewer for the Bucks County Intermediate Unit Special Services School District and as Medical Director for Provider 1 Health and Emergency Education and Development. His career has included roles building and leading career EMS systems from former volunteer organizations, managing multi-million-dollar operational budgets, and serving as Medical Sector Command for events including the Miss America Pageant and major concerts and professional sports.
For Penn Tactical Solutions students and the agencies that send them, Dr. Lavelle's role as Medical Director means PTS clinical training is delivered under the oversight of a working emergency physician with active operational, tactical, and disaster medicine experience. PTS does not teach from manuals alone. It teaches under the direction of a physician who has worked the scenes the courses are built for.
