Dr. James F. Tanis, MD is an EMS Physician working and living with his family in Central
Florida. His EMS experience spans over 2 decades in pre-hospital and emergent medical
care. Starting out at the bottom he has clawed his way to the top, graduating from the largest,
most intense EMS fellowship training program in the world. He has previously held educational,
operational and supervisory roles in EMS systems both large and small. Known both for
teaching as well as doing patient care and rescue operations.
Dr. Tanis joined his small, home town, first aid squad as a teenager after high school, running calls and
how people live and survive. Some days were very refreshing and satisfying, others can temper
your soul so you can live to fight another day.
Few people in the world know what it takes to be a first responder, to go to the place
everyone else is running from. His leadership style is built on the fact that a leader should lead
from the front and never ask someone to do something he won’t or can’t do himself. To go
under a train to find a struck pedestrian, up a ladder for a seizing construction worker,
underwater in a dark lagoon to find a child, into a burning building to pick up a fallen brother,
search the woods to find a missing person, follow a tactical team into a hot zone, wear a
hazmat suit to treat a contaminated patient, wait in a triage station as the towers fell, plan out a
response to a mass shooting, bring a critically ill patient home from another land, or tell a family
that their loved one died and won’t be home tonight. To be an effective leader one must lead
from the front and know what you ask is worth the effort. Dr. Tanis has been there and done
these things and many more; his knowledge, training and experiences have molded him into an
effective leader, mentor, educator, author and provider few can compete with.
Currently he is working as an Emergency Medicine Physician in all of the Central Florida
Advent Health Emergency Departments with FEP of TeamHealth; Associate EMS Medical
Director of Advent Health Orlando EMS and Flight-1; EMS Physician for MD1 and Cambridge
Consulting Group, Medical Director for AER Consulting Services, Flight Physician for Medway
Air Ambulance, and Telemedicine Physician for TalkDocGo and Signify Health.
