Dr. Thom Mayer

Dr. Thom Mayer is the Medical Director for the NFL Players Association, Executive Vice President of Leadership for LogixHealth, Founder of BestPractices, Inc., and Clinical Professor of Emergency Medicine at George Washington University and Senior Lecturing Fellow at Duke University. He was named the 2018 winner of the James D. Mills Outstanding Contribution to Emergency Medicine Award, which is the highest honor of the American College of Emergency Physicians. He was recently nominated to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. USA Today named him one of the “100 Most Important People in the NFL.” Tom Peters, the internationally acclaimed leadership guru, referred to his work as “gaspworthy.”

When asked about these awards, Dr. Mayer simply says, “I have only one talent. I know how to hire people who are not only better than me, but much better than me. They won the awards, not me.”

Dr. Mayer has been the founder, CEO, and principal shareholder of physician leadership, staffing, and management and ambulance transport companies with revenues in excess of $100 million, which were then sold with an average IRR in excess of 38%. He continues to hold intellectual property rights to all the content developed by these companies.

He is one of the most widely sought speakers on healthcare patient experience, leadership and management, hardwiring flow, trauma and emergency care, pediatric emergency care, EMS/disaster medicine, and sports medicine. His work in each of these areas has resulted in changing the very fabric of patient care.

On September 11, 2001, Dr. Mayer served as the Command Physician at the Pentagon Rescue Operation and has served on 3 Defense Science Board Task Forces, advising the Secretary of Defense. Most recently, in 2022, Dr. Mayer helped lead a mobile team to Ukraine, treating almost 350 patients and training over 1,700 Ukrainian medical staffers.

He has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles, over 100 book chapters, and has edited or written 20 textbooks, including "Leadership for Great Customer Service: Satisfied Employees, Satisfied Patients: 2nd Edition," "Leadership for Smooth Patient Flow," "Hardwiring Flow," "The Patient Flow Advantage," "Strauss and Mayer’s Emergency Department Management," and "Battling Healthcare Burnout."

Dr. Mayer was named the ACEP Outstanding Speaker of the Year and has been named ACEP’s “Over-the-Top” award winner 3 times. Battling Healthcare Burnout won the ACHE’s James Hamilton Award for the best healthcare leadership book in 2022 and Leadership for Smooth Patient Flow won the ACHE’s James Hamilton Award for the best healthcare leadership book in 2008. In sports medicine, his work at the forefront of changing concussion diagnosis and management in the NFL has changed the way in which these athletes are diagnosed and treated.

Dr. Mayer was the originator of the entire NFL Concussion Guidelines program, and thus has changed the nature of concussion diagnosis and management worldwide. He gives many examples of his NFL experiences in his talks.