People

Carly Whittaker, DO, MPH

Memorial Healthcare System

"Sequential and Simultaneous Video Laryngoscopy-assisted Flexible Endoscopic Intubation"

Dr. Whittaker is a second year emergency medicine resident at Memorial Healthcare System in Hollywood, Florida. She is excited to be completing residency in her hometown and honored to be treating the population where she was raised. While in medical school at Nova Southeastern University, she completed a master's of public health degree. Dr. Whittaker is passionate about public health and hopes to focus future research in this field. She also enjoys mentoring medical students.

Pauline Wiltz, DO

University Hospital Cleveland Medical Center

"From Margins to Mainstream: Mapping Health Disparities in Obstetric Care in the Emergency Department"

Dr. Wiltz is a second-year emergency medicine resident currently training at University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center/Case Western Reserve University. Dr. Wiltz had a specific area of interest on reproductive health as a community educator during her time as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nicaragua. This spurred her ongoing passion for advocacy surrounding reproductive rights in first trimester care in the emergency department. Her research is focused on using epidemiology and geospatial mapping technology to characterize first trimester pregnant patients presenting to the emergency department, including demographic, geographic characteristics, and social determinants of health. Her project aims to create a map reflecting the relationship between the patients characterized and OBGYN outpatient care locations throughout the greater Cleveland area in proximity to the emergency department.

Thomas K. Hagerman, MD

Henry Ford Health System

"Improving the Emergency Department Discharge Process for Older Adults: The GET HOME Safe Discharge Intervention"

Dr. Hagerman is a fourth-year resident in the combined emergency and internal medicine residency at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. He plans to pursue a fellowship in geriatrics after residency and a career in academic emergency medicine with a focus on care for older adults. In this GET HOME Safe project he will develop and evaluate a standardized conversation tool for emergency medicine residents to utilize to facilitate high quality discharge conversations. He is grateful for the support of the SAEM Foundation.

Ashley P. Cohen, MD

University of Michigan

"Law Enforcement As a Bridge between Bystanders and EMS in Cardiac Arrest"

Dr. Cohen is a resident physician in the department of emergency medicine at the University of Michigan. She has had a longstanding interest in community programming and health care advocacy, throughout her time as a registered nurse, during medical school, and throughout her residency training to date. Whether it be out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) outcomes, firearms injury prevention, or patient financial assistance, her efforts consistently demonstrate an overarching dedication to addressing health disparities. Her current work seeks to evaluate the OHCA response network within one Michigan county to determine if law enforcement may be an under-engaged first responder group and potential bridge to the arrival of EMS, particularly within medically underserved communities. More broadly, her career interests lie at the intersection of the clinical practice of academic emergency medicine, legislative advocacy, and data supported community interventions, to address inequities within health care systems.

Marina Gaeta Gazzola, MD

New York University Grossman School of Medicine

"Enhancing Emergency Department Distribution of Drug Checking Tools"

Dr. Gazzola is a resident physician in the department of emergency medicine at NYU Langone Health/Bellevue Hospital Center in New York and a post-doctoral research associate at the APT Foundation Inc., a not-for-profit, low-barrier opioid treatment program based in New Haven, Connecticut. She is a graduate of the Yale School of Medicine and Cornell University. Her scholarship investigates the intersection of social determinants of health and opioid use disorder; emergency department-based harm reduction interventions; and patient language preferences and stigma surrounding substance use disorders. 

Jane M. Hayes, MD, MPH

Mass General Brigham

"Policies and Practice for Prehospital Blood Transfusion in the United States"

During a gap year in medical school, Dr. Hayes completed a master's in public health with a focus in health policy at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health as a Zuckerman Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School Center for Public Leadership. She is thrilled to be selected as a SAEMF/RAMS Resident Research Grant awardee and hopes her work will contribute to improved resuscitation of trauma patients in the prehospital setting.

Simon J. Ostrowski, MD

University of Pittsburgh

"Feasibility of Assessing Alcohol Withdrawal Syndrome with a Wearable Biosensor"

Dr. Ostrowski is a first-year medical toxicology fellow at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC). He completed his emergency medicine residency at UPMC and medical school at University of Massachusetts Medical School. During medical school, he had the opportunity to work in Dr. Stephanie Carreiro’s lab using wearable biosensors in patients receiving opioid therapy and with opioid dependence, which ultimately served as inspiration for him to consider their use in other substance use disorders, namely alcohol withdrawal syndrome. Outside of medicine, Dr. Ostrowski enjoys spending time with his incredible wife, Estelle, his daughter, Edith, and his dog, Millie.

Emily Chien, MD, MPH, MBA

Weill Cornell Medicine

"Evaluation of the Emergency Medicine Training Program at Aga Khan University Hospital"

Dr. Chien is a global emergency medicine research fellow at Weill Cornell Medicine/Aga Khan University. She completed her medical training at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and her residency in emergency medicine at SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University/Kings County Hospital. She holds a master's of public health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a master's of business administration from the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School. Dr. Chien is currently completing her certificate in implementation science with the University of California, San Francisco. Her research focus is on the advancement of global emergency medicine education and capacity building through technology innovation. She is currently leading a program evaluation of the emergency medicine training program at Aga Khan University Hospital, Nairobi.

Samita M. Heslin, MD, MBA, MPH, MA, MS

Stony Brook University

"Artificial Intelligence Augmented Emergency Department Triage"

Dr. Heslin is an assistant professor of emergency medicine at the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University. After completion of her BA at Harvard University, she completed an MA at Harvard University, an MD, MBA, and MPH at Stony Brook University, and an MS in clinical informatics at Oregon Health & Science University. Dr. Heslin completed her emergency medicine residency at Stony Brook University, where she also served as chief resident. Dr. Heslin’s current research focuses on integrating emergency care operations and informatics. In her grant project, she will be developing an artificial intelligence-based solution to augment emergency department triage.

Kei U. Wong, MD

Rutgers New Jersey Medical School

"High-risk, Low-frequency Pediatric Procedural Training: Simulation-based Pediatric Emergent Airway Curriculum for EM Residents"

Dr. Wong is an assistant professor of emergency medicine in the division of pediatric emergency medicine at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School (NJMS). She completed her pediatric residency and chief residency at Goryeb Children’s Hospital, Morristown Medical Center, followed by a pediatric emergency medicine (PEM) fellowship at Yale New Haven Children's Hospital. Currently, she is the director of PEM education for the residency program. She also serves as the director for pediatric emergency medicine student elective, and pre-clerkship course director for students at Rutgers NJMS. Dr. Wong is interested about all aspects of medical education, pediatric airway readiness, and women in medicine. She is particularly passionate in integrating simulation-based education into her teaching to augment trainees' clinical skills acquisition. Dr. Wong is excited to introduce her longitudinal curriculum on pediatric airway procedural simulation for emergency medicine residents.

Megan Rybarczyk, MD, MPH

University of Pennsylvania, Department of Emergency Medicine

"Acute Coronary Syndrome in a Pakistan ED: Risk Factors and Clinical Pathway"

Dr. Rybarczyk is from Muncie, Indiana and graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a major in the biological sciences and a minor in anthropology. She received her medical degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and completed her residency training in emergency medicine at Boston Medical Center, serving her final year as a chief resident. She completed her global emergency medicine fellowship at the Harvard/Brigham and Women's Hospital Program, with a focus on emergency care systems development and emergency medicine training. Her experiences in the field of global health have involved clinical work, research, and/or education all over the world in countries such as the Bangladesh, Botswana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Dominica, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Haiti, Honduras, India, Pakistan, South Africa, and Uganda. Her research and academic interests are currently focused on EM education and training, particularly in low resource settings. She is an assistant professor of clinical emergency medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine and is the program director for the global emergency medicine fellowship in the department of emergency medicine.

Arthi Kozhumam, MScGH

Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago

"Child Passenger Safety and Associations with the Child Opportunity Index"

Ms. Kozhumam is a second-year MD-PhD student at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine with a PhD focus in injury epidemiology, emergency medicine health systems research, and implementation science. Prior to medical school, she completed BS and MS degrees in global health at Duke University, with research focusing on pediatric mental health and time-sensitive conditions. During her PhD, Ms. Kozhumam aims to apply epidemiologic and geographic information systems analysis tools to local and global injury data and learn implementation science methods to inform an adaptable intervention across resource settings to reduce disparities in child injury. Through the SAEM/RAMS Medical Student Research Grant, she is working with Dr. Michelle Macy of Stanley Manne Children’s Research Institute at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago to understand child passenger restraint appropriateness and relationships to individual- and population-level socio-demographic characteristics among children who received emergency and urgent care in Chicago. The long-term goal of this study is to identify family- and ecological-factors associated with child passenger safety to inform targeted deployment of a tailored intervention to promote child passenger safety best practices. Funding awarded through this SAEMF Medical Student Grant will allow Ms. Kozhumam to develop the technical skills needed for analyses, biostatistical consultation, and travel to present findings.

Rebecca A. Leff, MD

College of Medicine Mayo Clinic (Rochester)

"Implementation of a Multi-Tier Trauma Activation Protocol in Kumasi, Ghana"

Dr. Leff is an emergency medicine resident at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. She graduated with an MD from Ben Gurion University in Beer Sheva, Israel. Prior to studying medicine, she graduated with a BA in Middle Eastern Studies, Political Science, and Film and Media Studies with a certificate in interdisciplinary human rights from the University of California, Berkeley. She completed a research year with the Yale Emergency Medicine Global Health Section to focus on the non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in humanitarian crises, refugee barriers to care, barriers to care for low English proficiency patients, and humanitarian intervention development for both children and adults, with a particular focus on East Africa. She was the resident representative to the Global Emergency Medicine Academy (GEMA) and has served as co-chair of the humanitarian task force as well as the pediatric emergency medicine task force in GEMA. She received the 2023 GEMA Young Physician Award. She now serves as the chair-elect of the EMRA pediatric emergency medicine committee. She has worked in and around the human rights sector in both the Middle East and the United States for the past decade while completing her education, working with such organizations as Physicians for Human Rights-Israel in the Palestinian West Bank and with African asylum seekers in Israel, the Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services, the Center for International Migration and Integration (CIMI) where she served as a medical liaison to connect Sudanese and Eritrean refugees throughout Southern Israel to health care, the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in Turkey, Save a Child's Heart, and the Olive Tree Initiative. She served on the Physicians for Human Rights National Student Advisory Board and founded the Israeli medical student chapter of Physicians for Human Rights.

Joan Chen, MD

Mount Sinai Emergency Medicine

"Community Paramedicine Interventions for People Who Use Drugs"

Dr. Chen is currently a third-year emergency medicine resident at Mount Sinai Hospital. Their work with people who use drugs started many years prior to their entry into medicine: first with their local community in street-based syringe distribution, HIV/STI testing and harm reduction counseling, and then as outreach worker to unhoused and transiently housed street populations in San Francisco. They witnessed how the compassionate and evidence-based methods of harm reduction could transform people’s lives. Working alongside a community paramedic in a program targeted to high utilizers of emergency services left the greatest impression on them, showing them the potential of out-of-hospital interventions linked with emergency services to serve public health. With this, they were inspired to pursue a career in addiction medicine based in the field of emergency medicine. Their motivation has only deepened in their current residency training in the emergency departments of New York City, as they learn the skills and acquire the tools to care for people who use drugs on both individual and public health levels, with creativity and compassion.

Kira Gressman, MD

University of Washington

"Establishing a Quality Framework for Post-Overdose Care and Harm Reduction in the Prehospital to Emergency Department Care Continuum in Seattle, King County, Washington"

Dr. Gressman is a second-year resident at the University of Washington Emergency Medicine residency, pursuing a population health educational track focused on rural health and addiction medicine. She was born and raised in Colorado, and completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder in international affairs and molecular, cellular, developmental biology. Prior to medical school, she worked in HIV prevention and as an emergency medical technician, and volunteered in syringe access. For medical school, she attended Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine. As a medical student, she helped to establish a syringe access program in rural New Hampshire. Her interests within emergency medicine include substance use, rural health, development of bidirectional health system-community partnerships, and ground EMS.

Elizabeth J. Yetter, MD, MHPE

Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

"Barriers and Motivators for High- vs. Low-utilizers of POCUS: A Mixed Methods Study"

Dr. Yetter completed her residency at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, NY, and continued her training with an emergency ultrasound fellowship at New York University/Bellevue Hospital combined with a master's in health professions education from Maastricht University in the Netherlands. She has dual appointments as assistant professor in emergency medicine and medical education and serves as the ultrasound division director at Mount Sinai Morningside and Mount Sinai West. She completed the SAEM ARMED MedEd course to expand her qualitative research skills and to better contribute to pushing medical education forward. Her academic interests include bedside teaching, point-of-care ultrasound, skill acquisition and retention, and motivators and barriers to learning.

Leland Perice, MD

Rhode Island Hospital

"Ultrasound-guided Serratus Anterior Plane Block in ED Patients with Rib Fractures"

Dr. Perice is a physician with a background in emergency ultrasound and tech innovation. He is passionate about regional anesthesia and creating well-designed digital innovations to solve problems that exist within medical education and health care. He has created the regional anesthesia curriculum at Brown Emergency Medicine and runs a national course on the topic for residents at the American College of Emergency Physicians annual conference. As a creator, he has helped bring innovative ideas to life both at the patient’s bedside and within medical school curricula. He currently serves as ultrasound faculty at the Department of Emergency Medicine at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University.

Ryan McKillip, MD

Advocate Health Care Network

"Improving Antibiotic Stewardship for Urinary Tract Infections Using Machine Learning"

Dr. McKillip is clinical assistant professor of emergency medicine at University of Illinois College of Medicine at Chicago, and the co-director of research and publication for the department of emergency medicine at Advocate Christ Medical Center. Dr. McKillip’s work focuses on the integration of technology and artificial intelligence with medical education and practice. Dr. McKillip received a BS from Pepperdine University and an MD from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. He completed residency in emergency medicine at Advocate Christ Medical Center.

Ravi V. Chacko, MD, PhD

Advocate Health Care Network

"Improving Antibiotic Stewardship for Urinary Tract Infections Using Machine Learning"

Dr. Chacko is an emergency physician and the co-director of research and publication for the department of emergency medicine at Advocate Christ Medical Center. Dr. Chacko draws on a background in biomedical engineering to develop innovations in emergency medicine. Dr. Chacko completed the Medical Scientist Training Program at Washington University School of Medicine where he developed novel approaches to brain computer interfaces.

Torben K. Becker, MD, PhD, MBA

University of Florida Board of Trustees

"MotoMeds: Preventing Child Morbidity and Mortality from Infectious Diseases in Ghana"

Dr. Becker is an associate professor at the University of Florida. He is board-certified in emergency medicine, critical care medicine, and emergency medical services. After obtaining his MD and PhD at the University of Heidelberg Medical School in Germany, Dr. Becker completed his residency in emergency medicine at the University of Michigan, followed by fellowships in critical care medicine and emergency medical services at the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Florida, respectively. He is the executive director – emergency medicine of the University of Florida Health Critical Care Organization. In the department of emergency medicine, he serves as chief of the division of critical care medicine and director of the section of global health.