Dr. Sciammarella graduated from American University of the Caribbean in June, 1985. He is a Diplomate of the American Board of Internal Medicine, and the American Board of Emergency Medicine and has practiced Emergency Medicine for 25 years.
He is the Medical Director of the American Heart Association Training Center at Mercy Medical Center in Rockville Centre, New York. He has been an American Heart Association Instructor for over 30 years, and has served the Heart Association as National Faculty for Advanced Cardiac Life Support, Regional Faculty for ACLS, Basic Life Support and Pediatric Advanced Life Support, and as their regional spokesperson. He has appeared on many television and radio stations on behalf of the American Heart Association.
From 1989-994 Dr. Sciammarella served as full-time Medical Director of the Suffolk County, New York EMS System, where he initiated the Police-AED program, the first such program in State of New York.
Dr. Sciammarella was an an Assistant Professor of Clinical Emergency Medicine in the Department of Emergency Medicine, School of Medicine, State University of New York at Stony Brook. He co-chaired the EMS Committee of the New York State Chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians, served on the EMS Committee of the Medical Society of the State of New York, and is the former Chairman of the Suffolk County Regional EMS Council. In 1990 he was awarded the New York State EMS Council's EMS Educator of Excellence award.
Dr. Sciammarella is recognized as a national authority on Public Access Defibrillation programs. He has lectured at international Emergency Cardiac Care conferences on the topic, and served as a member of the Police AED Issues Forum for the National Center for Early Defibrillation. He is a co-author of the position paper authored by this group. He is also the author of the chapters on CPR and Automated External Defibrillators for e-medicine's on-line Family Medicine textbook. Dr. Sciammarella has lectured extensively across North America on the topic of rapid defibrillation and, in particular, on AEDs in the school setting. He was featured in the nationally broadcast PBS documentary "When Seconds Count" with Larry King in 1994.
In 2004, at the age of 50, Dr. Sciammarella joined the U.S. Army Reserve and was commissioned as a Major in the Medical Corps. In 2006 he served as Senior Battalion Surgeon with the 10th Mountain Division as part of Operation Mountain Thrust in Afghanistan, where he was awarded the Army Commendation Medal, National Defense Service Medal, the Afghanistan Campaign Medal, the Army Service Ribbon, the Overseas Service Ribbon, and the Armed Forces Reserve Medal with "M" Device. In 2008 he performed a two week Overseas Medical Readiness Training exercise in the Dominican Republic.
In 2009 Dr. Sciammarella was deployed to Iraq where he served with the 96th Sustainment Brigade as Senior Medical Officer at Camp Taji near Baghdad. Major Sciammarella was awarded the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, Iraq Campaign Medal with Campaign Star, NATO Medal, and 2nd "M" Mobilization Device for Armed Forces Reserve Medal. The entire unit was awarded a Meritorious Unit Commendation in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. In January of 2011 Dr. Sciammarella was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, the rank he still holds as a member of the Individual Ready Reserve.
Dr. Sciammarella has been an attending physician in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Memorial Hospital in Niagara Falls, New York since 2009. He currently serves as the Medical Director for the City of Niagara Falls Fire Department.
