Dr. Stephen Hayden graduated from the accelerated six-year biomedical program at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Albany Medical College and was elected to the alpha omega alpha honor medical society. He did a General Surgery internship at the San Diego Naval Hospital, which was followed by a tour of duty as senior flight surgeon for the Naval Strike Warfare Center at the NAS Fallon, Nevada. He additionally served as the medical director for Fallon’s High Sierra Search and Rescue helicopter unit. Dr. Hayden then completed an Emergency Medicine residency at the University Hospital in Stony Brook, New York, where he served as chief resident in 1993.
He joined the faculty at the University of California, San Diego Department of Emergency Medicine in July 1993, and is board certified in both Emergency Medicine, and Undersea and Hyperbaric Medicine. He served as Director for the UCSD Emergency Medicine Residency Training Program, is a Past President of the Council of Residency Directors for Emergency Medicine (CORD), and is currently the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Emergency Medicine.
Dr. Hayden is a primary editor for the textbook, The Five-Minute Emergency Medicine Consult. He is an item writer for the written certification examination of the American Board of Emergency Medicine as well as an oral examiner. He was the 1996 recipient of the EMRA scholarship for the ACEP/Emergency Medicine Foundation Teaching Fellowship, 1999 ACEP National Faculty Teaching Award, 2002 UCSD Golden Apple Teaching Award, 2005 AAEM Residency Program Director of the Year, and selected in 2006/2007 as one of America’s Top Physicians. Areas of research and teaching interest are evidence-based emergency medicine, emergency airway management, and imaging in emergency medicine.
Dr. Hayden is married with three children ages 12, 10, and 8, and enjoys sailing, tennis and will be testing soon for his second degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do.