How to Add Diversity to Your Emergency Department

Member-at-Large

University of Utah School of Medicine

Jeff Druck, MD, is the Vice Chair for Faculty Advancement, DEI and Wellbeing of the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Utah School of Medicine, as well as being a Professor within the Department of Emergency Medicine. Dr. Druck grew up in Houston, Texas, went to Rice University for his undergraduate degree, received his MD degree from Baylor College of Medicine, and he completed his residency at the Denver Health Residency Program in Emergency Medicine. He is board certified in Emergency Medicine and has served as an oral examiner for ABEM for the past 14 years.

Dr. Druck is an expert in emergency medicine education and in DEI, having served as the chair of his department’s DEI committee, an associate residency director, President of the school’s faculty senate, Student Affairs Dean, and Co-Director of the Office of Professional Excellence at the University of Colorado prior to his move to Utah.

In addition to serving on the SAEM Board of Directors, Dr. Druck has served as President of the Academy for Diversity and Inclusion in Emergency Medicine (ADIEM) as well as Co-Chair of the SAEM Consensus conference on Racism in Emergency Medicine. He has served on SAEM’s Awards committee, Program Committee, Consultation Committee, the Faculty Development Committee, and previously directed the Chief Resident Forum. He can be found on LinkedIn at @JeffDruck

Vice Chair of Education, Associate Professor

Virginia Commonwealth University

Joel Moll is Professor and Vice Chair of Education at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine. He previously served as Residency Program Director, Medical Education Fellowship Director, and Chair of the GME Executive Committee at VCU. Dr Moll was also Associate Residency Program Director at the University of Michigan, and Assistant Residency Director and Administration Fellowship Director at Emory University. Although always interested in education, Dr. Moll started his career in operations, and was medical director at Cleveland Clinic Florida and the University of Florida Gainesville prior to joining residency leadership. He has published multiple peer reviewed articles and textbook chapters, presents internationally and nationally, and has served on many national committees. He participated in the 2022 EM Model of Clinical Practice and the All EM Organization DEI Working Group. He is past recipient of the VCU Health Leadership in Medical Education Residency Director of the year, and the VCU School of Medicine Leonard Tow Humanism Awards. Interests include graduate medical education, curriculum development, diversity and inclusion, LGBTQIA+ health and education, and evidence-based medicine.

Vice Chair of Education and Program Director

UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas

Dr. Velez was born and raised in Puerto Rico, where she studied emergency Medicine before moving to Dallas for a tox fellowship and have been affiliated with UTSW since then. She has been the PD since 2011 and vice chair for education in the last three years. Passionate about education, cultural competency, and anything tox.

Chair, Emergency Medicine

MGB Brigham and Women's Faulkner Hospital

Dr. Leon Sanchez is currently the Chief of Emergency Medicine at the MGB Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital and an Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Prior to that, Dr. Sanchez was the Vice Chair for Network Operations at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He is a nationally recognized expert in the field of Emergency Medicine Operations and his areas of recent focus include operational improvement, patient flow and throughput optimization, queuing, and schedule optimization.

Professor & System Vice Chair of Emergency Medicine

Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Lynne D. Richardson, MD, FACEP, is Professor of Emergency Medicine and Professor of Population Health Science & Policy at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, and System Vice Chair for the Department of Emergency Medicine of the Mount Sinai Health System. A native New Yorker, she holds Bachelor’s degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Life Sciences and Management; and an MD degree from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She completed the Emergency Medicine Residency at Jacobi Hospital/Albert Einstein College of Medicine, where she served as Chief Resident. Dr. Richardson became a Diplomate of the American Board of Emergency Medicine in 1985, launching a remarkable career as a clinician, an educator, a researcher and an advocate. Dr. Richardson is now one of the most accomplished investigators in emergency medicine and one of its most respected research mentors; her work has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid. Dr. Richardson joined the faculty at Mount Sinai in 1995 to establish the Mount Sinai Emergency Medicine Residency, which, under her leadership, emerged as one of the premiere training programs on the East Coast. In 2002, she left the Program Director position to become Director of the Research Division. She has recruited a cadre of talented clinician investigators and, through a strong emphasis on mentoring and multi-disciplinary collaborations, she has built a research program that currently ranks #2 in the country in NIH funding. She remains involved in physician education at both the undergraduate and post-graduate levels. In addition to teaching emergency medicine, she is a member of the Ethics faculty and teaches in the Masters of Public Health program. Her research interests include the use of clinical and administrative data to investigate issues of access, quality and equity; developing and assessing the effectiveness of strategies to eliminate health care disparities, particularly through the use of electronic health record (EHR)-embedded clinical decision support tools; and care redesign featuring innovative models of emergency care and emergency department-based care coordination and care transition interventions to support population health initiatives and improve patient outcomes. She is an expert on community engagement and a national thought leader in the ethics of conducting emergency research. Her mixed-methods "Community VOICES" studies have defined best practices for community consultation in exception from informed consent research. Dr. Richardson has made highly influential contributions to eliminating healthcare disparities in both the research and policy arenas. She is a member of the New York City Board of Health, the first emergency physician ever to serve in that Board's more than one hundred and fifty year history. She serves on the Advisory Committee to the Director (ACD) of the Centers for Disease Control and is the current Chair of the ACD Health Disparities Subcommittee. She has received numerous awards for distinguished service, exceptional leadership, and outstanding teaching from various academic institutions, professional organizations and community groups. In 2016, Dr. Richardson was elected to the National Academy of Medicine.

Vice Chair of Education

Baylor College of Medicine

Dr. M. Tyson Pillow completed his undergraduate training at Rice University, and his medical school training at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, TX. After three years of Emergency Medicine Residency training at the University of Chicago, he returned to Baylor as faculty in the Section of Emergency Medicine. He currently serves as the Residency Program Director and Vice Chair for Education for the Department of Emergency Medicine, and the Medical Director for Simulation and Standardized Patient Programs for Baylor College of Medicine. During this time, he also completed a Masters in Education program at the University of Houston. Dr. Pillow’s interests focus on education, including education technology, simulation, standardized patients, feedback and evaluation, and bedside teaching. He has received numerous teaching awards, including the John P. McGovern Teaching Award for the Clinical Sciences (2013, 2017), and the Council of Residency Directors National Faculty Teaching Award (2012). He has also delivered multiple workshops on Education Technology at ACGME annual meeting, AAMC annual meeting, and other national Emergency Medicine academic meetings.

Associate Professor, Vice Chair of Education, Mentor

Stanford School of Medicine - Department of Emergency Medicine

Dr. Michael Gisondi is the inaugural Vice Chair of Education in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Stanford University. He is the Principal and Founder of the Precision Education and Assessment Research Lab (The PEARL), Co-Director of the Scholarly Concentration in Medical Education, and the faculty advisor for LGBTQ+ Meds at Stanford School of Medicine. He is a Distinguished Member of the Stanford Medicine Teaching and Mentoring Academy. Dr. Gisondi is a medical education researcher and an expert in the application of social media in medical education. He is a member of the editorial boards of Academic Life in Emergency Medicine, International Clinician Educators Blog, and the Journal of Education and Teaching in Emergency Medicine. He is an associate editor for the textbook, Emergency Medicine, and conference faculty with the national certification course, EPEC-EM: Education in Palliative and End-of-life Care in Emergency Medicine. Dr Gisondi previously served on the Board of Directors for the Council of Residency Directors in Emergency Medicine. Earlier in his career, he served as Residency Program Director, Medical Education Scholarship Fellowship Director (SAEM-approved), and Director of the Feinberg Academy of Medical Educators at Northwestern University. In 2014, Dr. Gisondi was awarded the National Faculty Teaching Award of the American College of Emergency Physicians and was named Alumnus of the Year by Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine. He completed the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine Chair Development Program and the Stanford Medicine Leadership Academy.

Professor-Vice Chair, Associate Dean

Emory University School of Medicine

Sheryl L. Heron, MD, MPH, is a professor and vice-chair of faculty equity, engagement and empowerment in the department of emergency medicine, inaugural associate dean for community engagement, equity and inclusion and associate director of education and training for the injury prevention research center at Emory (IPRCE), Emory University School of Medicine. She is also a past chair of the emergency medicine section of the National Medical Association. Dr. Heron has received numerous awards including the Partnership Against Domestic Violence’s HOPE Award, the Women in Medicine Award from the Council of Concerned Women of the National Medical Association, the Gender Justice Award from the Commission on Family Violence, and was named a Hero of Emergency Medicine by the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP). She was named the inaugural president of the Academy for Diversity & Inclusion in Emergency Medicine (ADIEM) of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine and is an editor of two textbooks on diversity and inclusion in quality patient care in emergency medicine. Dr. Heron has lectured extensively on topics such as diversity, equity & inclusion as well as wellness and well-being in health care.