Dara Kass

Dara Ann Kass (born September 6, 1977) is an American emergency medicine physician, healthcare policy consultant, and equity advocate. She is a Professor of the Practice at the Brown University School of Public Health and an attending emergency physician at NYC Health + Hospitals, Lincoln. Kass is a longtime advocate for gender equity and advancing the careers of women in medicine. During the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, she served as a prominent public health communicator, frequently sharing her clinical experiences after contracting the virus. Following the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization Supreme Court decision, her work has focused extensively on reproductive healthcare policy and protecting access to sterilizing care within the emergency department setting.

Early life and education Kass was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. Inspired by her mother, who worked as an emergency medicine nurse at Brookdale Hospital, she pursued a career in medicine. Under her leadership, the platform addressed critical workforce issues such as gender bias, pay disparities, and work-life balance, while expanding to host annual national conferences, publish research, and foster mentorship.

Beyond career advancement, FemInEM served as an educational repository for women's health. Under Kass's direction, the platform integrated a heavy focus on reproductive health education, publishing resources and clinical guidelines tailored for emergency providers. She has written extensively about the harassment women in medicine experience from both systemic structures and patients. In addition to equity work within her specialty, Kass collaborated with other healthcare leaders to address firearm injury prevention, co-authoring public health advocacy pieces detailing gun violence as a medical crisis.

COVID-19 Pandemic Response While working as a frontline physician in New York City during the onset of the Covid-19 Pandemic, Kass contracted SARS-CoV-2 in March 2020. During her recovery and subsequent isolation, she utilized her public platform to highlight the systemic pressures facing emergency departments, including critical shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) and ventilators, as well as the mental health strain on healthcare workers.

Throughout the pandemic, she appeared regularly as a medical expert on national cable news networks, including MSNBC. She was publicly critical of the Trump administration's initial handling of the crisis, citing a lack of federal coordination and insufficient response to early epidemiological warnings. Awardee, Momentum Award, Academy of Women in Academic Emergency Medicine (AWAEM), 2015 Nominee, Mentor of the Year Award, American Association of Women Emergency Physicians (AAWEP), 2016 Awardee, Mentor of the Year Award, American Association of Women Emergency Physicians (AAWEP), 2018 Awardee, Advancement of Women in Academic Emergency Medicine Award, Society for Academic Emergency Medicine (SAEM), 2019 Awardee, Advancing Emergency Care Award, New York American College of Emergency Physicians (NYACEP), 2019 Awardee, EMRA 45under45, Emergency Medicine Residents' Association, 2019 Awardee, Willoughby Award, American College of Osteopathic Emergency Physicians (ACOEP), 2019 Awardee, Stand With Her Award, Champion of Women in Medicine, 2019 Awardee, The Tamara O’Neal Health Justice Service Award, The University of Illinois-Chicago, 2021 Awardee, Outstanding Mother Award, The National Mother's Day Council, 2021 Honoree, Jonas Salk Scholarship Awards Ceremony, City College of New York, 2022 Awardee, Dean's Social Mission Award, CUNY School of Medicine PA Program, 2024 Awardee, Ailanthus Award, SUNY Downstate College of Medicine, 2024

Personal Life and Organ Donation Reform Kass is a mother of three children: Hannah, Charlie, and Sammy. Her youngest son, Sammy, was diagnosed as an infant with alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, a rare genetic condition causing severely impaired liver function. When his condition worsened, Kass acted as a living donor, successfully donating a portion of her liver to him. She chronicled the experience publicly in The New York Times and other outlets to raise awareness for living organ donations.