Ryan Stanton, MD, FACEP, vividly recalls watching his first car race as a child. The sounds, the speed, the energy … there’s nothing like it. Years later, emergency medicine allows him to combine his favorite sport with his life’s work.

He got his start treating fans and race teams as a resident managing onsite care centers. Through his involvement with ACEP, he met race medicine luminary Dr. Bobby Lewis, medical director for Talladega SuperSpeedway. The connection opened the door for Dr. Stanton to work at the legendary venue and join the American Medical Response (AMR) Safety Team.

Fast forward and Dr. Stanton, based in Kentucky, now leads the NASCAR Safety Team as medical director of Global Medical Response Motorsports, which staffs NASCAR, USF, and the Superstar Racing Experience (SRX) series. “Emergency physicians are a perfect fit to manage the full range of care that drivers, crew members and fans may need leading up to and during a race,” Dr. Stanton said. “Emergency care is the Swiss Army knife of medicine. Emergency physicians are accustomed to taking the unknown and making order from chaos.”

Dr. Stanton, also the Vice President of Communications on the ACEP Board of Directors and host of the popular emergency medicine podcast “Frontline,” lives out his boyhood dreams more than 20 race weekends each year. But the job goes beyond the obvious care provided after a wreck. Drivers and crews spend months at a time on the road and they travel through rural areas, where only critical access hospitals may be nearby.

Dr. Stanton has managed everything from muscle aches to injuries, norovirus outbreaks, and even crew member cardiac arrest. Temperatures inside the cars on the track can reach 120 degrees, so heat-related illness prevention and wellness checks are a regular part of the job. He’s particularly proud of the COVID-19 plan that enabled NASCAR to be the first major sport to return after the 2020 shutdown. Another aspect of being part of the safety team is trackside training.

“We get rental cars and simulate crash scenarios,” he said. “The pressure is real, and we have to be ready. On race days, everything we do is on camera. It’s medicine under thousands of microscopes, and everyone seems willing to give a performance review.” This passion project is much more than a side job. It helps him avoid burnout, too.

“Through medical school and residency, we are taught guard rails,” said Dr. Stanton. “Told what to do, shown where to be. As my career progressed, I realized that I needed to find and fuel the piece of my career that I can build and grow, not in lieu of emergency medicine but as a complement—a practice-plus.”