Nancy Caroline

Nancy Lee Caroline (; June 27, 1944 – December 12, 2002) was an American physician and writer who worked in emergency medical services (EMS). She was medical director of Freedom House, an emergency ambulance service that assisted underserved populations in Pittsburgh in the 1960s and 1970s. She was also the first medical director of Magen David Adom, Israel's Red Cross Society, and was later called "Israel's Mother Teresa" by colleagues.

Early life Nancy Lee Caroline was born on June 27, 1944, in Newton, Massachusetts, to Leo and Zelda Caroline. From a young age, Nancy had a strong social conscience and a strong sense of her identity as a Jewish person. She began her medical career while still a teenager, working as a photographer and lab worker at Massachusetts General Hospital. In 1966 she received a B.A. in linguistics from Radcliffe College and her M.D. from Case Western Reserve University in 1971. She stayed in Cleveland to complete her residencies, and then began a fellowship in critical care medicine at the University of Pittsburgh in 1973.

Freedom House project Her mentor in the fellowship was Peter Safar known for his work in emergency medicine and cardiopulmonary resuscitation. In 1974, the university received grant funding from the U.S. Department of Transportation to create a "curriculum for nation wide emergency medical services".

Caroline wrote Emergency Care in the Streets, a textbook which was the first of its kind for paramedic training. The program she created was focused on emergency medical responses to terrorist attacks, dedicated to enabling the providers to respond to emergencies within minutes. She also translated her EMS textbook into Hebrew.

East Africa Nancy Caroline relocated to Kenya in 1982 to become Senior Medical Officer of the African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF) in Nairobi. While working in the region, she managed the Flying Doctors emergency medical service, which covers Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, and southern Sudan.

In 2002, she married geneticist and molecular biologist Lazarus Astrachan, whom she had first met in medical school. They were only married a few months before she died. She was diagnosed with multiple myeloma and was cared for at the Hospice center she founded. She died of multiple myeloma on December 12, 2002, at home in Metula, Israel, and was buried in her native Boston. Her husband died in 2003, also of cancer.

Published works National Training Course, Emergency Medical Technician, Paramedic: Course Guide, 1977 Workbook for Emergency Care in the Streets (with James C. McClintock), 3rd edition, 1987 Ambulance Calls: Review Problems for the Paramedic, 3rd edition, 1991 CPR for All: An Illustrated Manual of Basic Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) in Adults, Children, and Infants (with Ilan Yeshua), 1991 Emergency Medical Treatment: A Textbook for EMT-As and EMT-Intermediates, 1991 A Manual for Instructors Adapted to Emergency Medical Treatment, 3rd edition, 1991 Workbook for Emergency Medical Treatment: Review Problems for EMTs: With Answers, 1991 Handbook of Prehospital Medications, 1995 Study Guide for Emergency Care in the Streets, 5th Edition, 1995 Handbook of Palliative Care (with Alexander Waller), 2nd edition, 2000