Awards

Recipient

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  Travis Schmitz, PhD, MBA

  Administrator

  Northwestern Medicine

Click the grant name to learn more about Dr. Chen's work.

Recipient

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  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.

Click the grant name to learn more about Dr. Skains' work.

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  Rachel M. Skains, MD, MSPH

  University of Alabama at Birmingham

  "Risk Factors and Time Course of Incident Delirium Among Older Adults in the Emergency Department (ED)"

  Dr. Skains is an assistant professor in the department of emergency medicine (EM) at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) with a joint faculty position at the Birmingham VA Medical Center (BVAMC). Dr. Skains is an early-stage investigator focused on improving medication safety and cognitive impairment management in the acute care of older adults through patient-centered outcomes research. Dr. Skains’ interest in cognition and aging stems from her undergraduate training in neuroscience, working as a clinical research coordinator at Carolinas Neuromuscular/MDA-ALS Center, and serving as a NC Albert Schweitzer Fellow. After graduating from Wake Forest School of Medicine (2016), she completed her EM residency at UAB (2019) followed by a clinical research fellowship focused on geriatric EM while pursuing a master's degree in public health in clinical and translational science from the UAB School of Public Health (2021). 

  
  

  Dr. Skains was awarded the AHRQ NRSA T32 Postdoctoral Scholar Fellowship in the UAB Health Services Research Training Program (2020-2022), in addition to funding through the UAB Integrative Center for Aging Research (ICAR) and Geriatric Emergency Care Applied Research (GEAR) 1.0 pilot grant programs. She has recently been awarded two NIA awards: Grants for Early Medical/Surgical Specialists' Transition to Aging Research (GEMSSTAR) R03 (2023-2025) to evaluate the risk factors and time course of incident delirium among older adults in the ED and Exploratory/Developmental Grant R21 (2023-2025) for comprehensive assessment of delirium risk due to medications, in addition to the GEMSSTAR for EM Supplemental Funding Program through SAEMF/EMF. Furthermore, Dr. Skains is an ED physician champion for the UAB – Highlands and BVAMC Geriatric ED committees, which received Level 1 (2021) and Level 3 (2023) accreditations respectively, completed the UAB Geriatric Scholar Interprofessional Program (2019-2021), served as fellow board member for the GEM Section of ACEP (2021-2023), and currently chair of the AGEM Grants & Awards subcommittee (2023-Present). Dr. Skains is also leader of the medication safety committee to update the national Geriatric ED Guidelines, leader of the ACEP quality measure group to develop a geriatric high-risk ED prescription list, Level 3 Geriatric ED accreditation reviewer, and committee member for UAB’s Department of Inter-professional Practice and Training (DIPT), What Matters Advisory Group, and AGEM Grant and Awards Subcommittee. Finally, she was recently the recipient of the 2023 Academy of Geriatric Emergency Medicine Early Career Achievement Award and the UAB Department of EM Outstanding Researcher of the Year 2023.

Click the grant name to learn more about Dr. Moser's work.

Recipient

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  Joe-Ann Moser, MD, MS

  The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System

  "Non-Promotable Task Completion by Emergency Medicine Chief Residents"

  Dr. Moser is a graduate medical education scholarship fellow and clinical instructor at the University of Wisconsin. She earned a BA in biochemistry and an MS in chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Moser went on to receive an MD with distinction in medical education and global health from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, where she also completed her emergency medicine residency. She is currently pursuing a master's of health professions education at the University of Illinois - Chicago. Dr. Moser’s research interests include curriculum design and minimizing trainee and faculty burden to improve wellness.

Click the grant name to learn more about Dr. Wong's work.

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  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.

Click the grant name to learn more about Dr. Rybarczyk's work.

Recipient

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  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.

Click the grant name to learn more about Dr. Fraga's work.

Recipient

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  Denise N. Fraga, MD

  Atrium Health - Carolinas Medical Center - Wake Forest Baptist

  "Pediatric Cranial Ultrasound for Point-of-Care Intracranial Pathology Detection"

  Dr. Fraga is a clinical assistant professor of emergency medicine and the ultrasound fellowship director with the Carolinas Emergency Medicine Residency Program at Atrium Health - CMC - Wake Forest University School of Medicine (Charlotte Campus). She completed her residency at the University of Maryland (UMEM) in Baltimore and an ultrasound fellowship at Vanderbilt Medical Center. Dr. Fraga works at a Level 1 adult and pediatric trauma center. Her scholarly interests include teaching point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) in Guatemala with the pediatric and EM residency programs, ultrasound-guided regional anesthesia, and musculoskeletal ultrasound. Her grant project, Cranial Ultrasound for Point of Care Intracranial Pathology Detection in Pediatrics (CUPID-Peds), is an exploratory pilot project using B-mode cranial POCUS (cPOCUS) through the temporal bone window in children to detect intracranial pathology due to blunt head trauma. The results of this innovative protocol could be used in resource-limited emergency departments in the U.S. and/or abroad.

Click the grant name to learn more about Dr. Roppolo's work.

Recipient

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  Lynn P. Roppolo, MD

  Integrative Emergency Services at Tarrant County Hospital District, JPS Health Network

  "A Multi-center Trial to Determine eFAST Longitudinal Curves Using CUSUM Analysis"

  Dr. Roppolo is a retired professor of emergency medicine from the University of Texas Southwestern, where she was employed for 21 years, worked clinically primarily at Parkland Hospital, was part of the residency leadership for 15 years and completed the emergency ultrasound fellowship in 2019. She has participated in almost 50 research studies primarily as the principal investigator or senior author and has mentored countless number of students, residents and junior faculty in research. She is currently working clinically at John Peter Smith Hospital as core faculty and the assistant ultrasound director. She is employed by Integrative Emergency Services (IES) and created an ultrasound research collaborative with other IES ultrasound faculty at two nearby hospitals with EM residency programs and mandatory ultrasound rotations. Their AEUS grant study is a multi-institutional study involving these three programs to determine longitudinal learning curves of their rotating EM interns for the eFAST examination using cumulative sum (CUSUM), an analysis widely used in the medical field in recent years.

Click the grant name to learn more about Dr. Tsuchida's work.

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  Ryan E. Tsuchida, MD

  University of Wisconsin, Department of Emergency Medicine

  "A Qualitative Case Study Analysis of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Leaders in Emergency Medicine"

  Dr. Tsuchida (he/him) is an assistant professor of emergency medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the assistant dean for multicultural affairs for health professions learners at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health. He has a long-standing commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. Dr. Tsuchida has served in a variety of leadership positions for the Society of Academic Emergency Medicine (SAEM). In collaboration with the Equity and Inclusion Committee and the Academy for Diversity and Inclusion in Emergency Medicine (ADIEM), he has given presentations at national SAEM annual meetings on resident-driven recruitment and retention strategies for underrepresented in medicine medical students. He has also facilitated an unconscious bias workshop for the SAEM committee and academy chairs. As assistant dean, Dr. Tsuchida is a faculty mentor to underrepresented and historically marginalized medical students through the Building Equitable Access to Mentorship initiative, a program he now oversees. The impact of his work has been recognized by the University of Michigan Medical School’s Award for Excellence in Institutional Change To Promote Health Equity, SAEM’s ADIEM Future Outstanding Academician Award, and the University of Wisconsin, Department of Emergency Medicine Faculty Award for Excellence in Leadership and Service.

Click the grant name to learn more about Mr. Makutonin's work.

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  Michael Makutonin

  The George Washington University

  "Effects of Prolonged ED Length of Stay in Pediatric Psychiatric Crisis Patients"

  Mr. Makutonin is a fourth-year medical student at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. He has been involved in dataset and data science research throughout his medical school career, starting multi-institution collaborations by drawing on skills he learned as a software engineer and a data science bootcamp instructor. Mr. Makutonin's nascent research career has earned him recognition in the field, including research awards and plenaries at national conferences. Mr. Makutonin is passionate about the potential of data science research to inform and solve impactful problems and continues to mentor others in the field as a vice chair in the EMRA research committee and a principal investigator at the George Washington University Healing Clinic, among other roles.

Click the grant name to learn more about Ms. Abrams' work.

Recipient

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  Elizabeth A. Abrams, MSPH

  The Ohio State University

  "Comparing Health Records and Self-Report Data to Target ED HIV Screening"

  Ms. Abrams is a second-year student at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. Her experience and professional interests drive her desire to develop expertise at the intersection of clinical medicine and public health. After undergraduate training, Ms. Abrams completed a master’s degree in public health that focused on health behavior change and community-based participatory research methods, often implemented in collaboration with and support of populations receiving suboptimal care or who are under-engaged by the health care system. She researched care systems for people who use drugs and those living with HIV, including the implementation and evaluation of programs aiming to reduce HIV viral load among youth locally and globally. She then served as project coordinator leading substance misuse intervention programs for the Washington, DC Hospital Association, where involvement with physicians, scientists, community partners, and patients ultimately led her to medical school. Ms. Abrams has co-authored 10 publications, including one as lead author focused on health care provider experiences helping implement an HIV youth peer mentoring program. She is working towards a career as a physician-scientist through which she can specialize in clinical and public health interventions.

Click the grant name to learn more about Ms. Kozhumam's work.

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  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.

Click the grant name to learn more about Dr. Wiltz's work.

Recipient

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  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.

Click the grant name to learn more about Dr. Whittaker's work.

Recipient

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  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.

Click the grant name to learn more about Dr. Leff's work.

Recipient

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  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.

Click the grant name to learn more about Dr. Hagerman's work.

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  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.

Click the grant name to learn more about Dr. Gazzola's work.

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  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. 

Click the grant name to learn more about Dr. Hayes' work.

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  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.

Click the grant name to learn more about Dr. Cohen's work.

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  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.

Click the grant name to learn more about Dr. Ostrowski's work.

Recipient

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  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.