Robert Wears

Wears graduated from Johns Hopkins University in 1969 with a BA in liberal arts.^[7] After completing his degree, he enrolled in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, completing his medical degree in 1973.^[7] He did his residency at the University Hospital of Jacksonville, where he served as chief resident in 1978.^[7]

In 1979, Wears left his residency at the University Hospital to form a group of board-certified emergency physicians,^[2] which was the year that the American Board of Emergency Medicine first received approval.^[7]

In 1986, Wears took a faculty position as a professor in the department of emergency medicine at the University of Florida College of Medicine – Jacksonville.^[4]

In 1995, Wears earned a master's degree in computer science from the University of North Florida,^[4][8] and in 2011 he obtained his PhD in industrial safety^[4][8] from the Ecole Nationale Superior des Mines de Paris Centre de Recherché sur les Risques et les Crises, graduating with honors.^[7] His PhD thesis was titled Resilience Dynamics in Uncertain, High Tempo, High Stakes Settings^[2].

In 2013, Wears was appointed to a three-year term as a University of Florida Research Foundation professor.^[4]

In 2014, Wears received an honorary five-year appointment from the University of Southern Denmark.^[4]

Wears was a member of multiple professional societies and organizations, including the National Center for Human Factors in Healthcare, and served on the board of directors for the Emergency Medicine Patient Safety Foundation.^[1] He served on the editorial board of the Annals of Emergency Medicine from 1990 through his death,^[7] and the journal maintains a web page with a collection of his editorials.^[9] He was a Life Fellow of this American College of Emergency Physicians.^[1]