Dr Valda C Crowder, MD, MBA

Dr. Valda Crowder is a medical expert on the front line of the gun violence and mental health crises, four pandemics, natural disasters and the fallout of health disparities. As a board-certified emergency medicine physician for more than three decades, she has treated victims of violence, category four hurricanes and patients infected with COVID-19, H1N1, HIV and tuberculosis. During a rash of mass shootings at US postal offices, her clinical and public policy skills saved lives. She is currently director of Emergency Medicine at UPMC Community Hospital in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

To improve medical care and reduce health disparities, Dr. Crowder has re-engineer large health care systems, such as Cooper Hospital/UMDNJ Health Care System in Camden, New Jersey, and Corizon Health, which provides health care to incarcerated inmates nationwide. Her advice and research on domestic violence have contributed to policies changes of the National Football League.

As a graduate of Cornell University and University of Cincinnati Medical School, Dr. Crowder completed her residency in Emergency Medicine at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan. Recognizing the importance of merging clinical, business and public health/community expertise, the Mississippi native later earned a Master of Business Administration from Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania and serves as National Chair of the Health Committee for Black Women for Positive Change. She resides in the District of Columbia.

Subspecialties:

Valda Crowder was a pioneer of emergency medicine as a separate field, defining the practice in an article published by Annals of Emergency Medicine. After graduating in one of the first classes to specialize in emergency medicine, she was instrumental in the drafting and passage of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, a 1986 law, known as EMTALA, requiring emergency departments to stabilize and treat patients regardless of their insurance coverage.

Dr. Crowder has 30 years of experience as a board-certified emergency medicine physician. Her medical care spans a wide range of patient settings from an Indian reservation to a prison to rural and urban hospitals as well as four pandemics, a mass shooting associated with the US Postal Service and category four hurricane Maria in 2017.

Outside of her medical practice, Dr. Crowder holds healthcare webinars to answer the public's questions about COVID-19.