Dr. Jacoby is the commander of the California-4 DMAT (Disaster Medical Assistance Team) and has deployed on nearly two dozen major disasters under the National Disaster Medical System, including the Northridge earthquake (1994); the Olympic Games in Atlanta (1996) and Salt Lake City (2002); the evacuation of the City of Grand Forks, North Dakota, due to the flood of the Red River of the North (1997); Hurricane Georges, Shreveport, Louisiana, and St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands (1998); Ground Zero in New York City following the terrorist attacks on America (2001); Super Typhoon Pongsona in Guam (2002); Hurricanes Katrina (2005), Gustav, and Ike (2008); and Superstorm Sandy (2012) and Harvey (2017).

In the recent era of coronavirus, he has deployed for quarantining missions to Omaha, Nebraska, for one of the State Department’s Wuhan, China, evacuation flights and was involved in the screening and debarkation of the Grand Princess cruise ship passengers in the port of Oakland and the passenger quarantine care at Travis Air Force Base.

Dr. Jacoby is the author of multiple articles, editorials, and textbook chapters in the fields of emergency and disaster medicine, infectious diseases, and hyperbaric medicine.

He has received multiple awards, including the Golden Apple Teaching Excellence Award from a graduating emergency medicine residency class, the Doctor of the Year Award from UCSD Medical Center in 2001, the UCSD Chancellor’s Associates Award for Community Service in 2007, and the San Diego Health Champions Award from the San Diego and Imperial Counties Hospital Association in 2007. He also was elected to Fellowship of the Undersea & Hyperbaric Medical Society in 2018.

Honorary Membership Award

Pat Hughes, CMP

Ms. Hughes began her career at ACEP in 1988 as an accounting assistant in the finance department. She spent four years in that role until moving to the educational meetings department as planning and implementation coordinator. In that position, Ms. Hughes worked with faculty for ACEP’s annual Scientific Assembly and many other educational meetings in relation to hands-on skills labs and collecting and reviewing their syllabi.

Later, her role was expanded to include meeting planning for the Emergency Department Directors Academy. In 2003, Ms. Hughes earned her designation as a certified meeting professional, demonstrating her knowledge in the meetings and conventions industry.

In 2009, Ms. Hughes shifted her skills to the academic affairs department working on the Research Forum, Emergency Medicine Basic Research Skills (EMBRS), and Teaching Fellowship programs alongside ACEP staff member Marjorie Geist and later Loren Rives. She was promoted to the academic affairs meetings manager in 2014, where she remained until her retirement on July 1, 2020.