People

Jason Chu, MD

Columbia University Irving Medical Center

Dr. Chu is an Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. He received his medical degree from SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University. He completed his residency in Emergency Medicine at Stony Brook University Hospital and a fellowship in Medical Toxicology at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. His interests include antidotal therapies for various toxins such as calcium channel blockers, organophosphates and GHB. He is also passionate about simulation and integrating simulation in medical education.

Satheesh Gunaga, DO

Henry Ford Wyandotte Hospital & Envision Healthcare

Satheesh Gunaga, DO, is a board-certified emergency medicine physician, educator, administrator, and clinical research scientist. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Psychology from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and his Osteopathic medical degree from Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine. He completed his emergency medicine residency at Henry Ford Health - Wyandotte Hospital.

With over 15 years of experience, Dr. Gunaga has practiced and taught Emergency Medicine within the Henry Ford Health System and Michigan State University. He served ten years as the associate EM residency director before taking on his current roles in 2019 as the Vice Chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine, EM Research Director, and EMS physician medical director at Henry Ford Wyandotte Hospital. He also holds the position of ED Medical Director at Henry Ford Health Center Brownstown.

Dr. Gunaga’s clinical research focuses on the safe transition of care for older adults and the integration of primary and specialized palliative care into the emergency department and prehospital settings. He is currently the chair of the Palliative Medicine Interest Group for the Society for Emergency Medicine, a member of AGEM's Geriatric ED Guidelines 2.0 Working Group, and serves on the board of directors at Compassion and Choices, the nation’s largest nonprofit organization advocating for end-of-life rights and resources.

Mohammad M. Wiese, MD

Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons

Dr. Wiese is a ABEM Board Certified Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. He received his medical degree from California Northstate University College of Medicine. He completed his residency in Emergency Medicine at NYP-Brooklyn Methodist Hospital, and subsequently completed an Emergency Medicine Simulation Fellowship at Northwell Health - North Shore University Hospital. He joined the Columbia Emergency Medicine Department in July 2023 and currently serves as Simulation faculty and an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. He is also Co-Program Director of the Columbia University Department of EM Simulation Fellowship.

Kenneth Bernard, MD

UVA Community Health

Ken Bernard, MD, MBA is a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa (Anishinaabe), emergency medicine physician, acute care quality researcher and advocate, and entrepreneur. Currently, he serves as Chairman of Emergency Medicine at the Prince William Medical Center in Northern, Virginia and System Medical Director for UVA Community Health. Dr. Bernard earned his undergraduate degree in Biology at Yale University, and his medical and Master of Business Administration degrees from Harvard University. He has conducted extensive research and studies on health care disparities and barriers to quality care that affect Native Americans and Alaskan Natives. His work is a reflection of the marriage of his native roots and his professional pursuits. Prior to moving to Virginia, he started his career in the Navajo IHS service area and was a founding partner of the Pinnacle Emergency Medical Group. He also was one of the founding members of the Native American Emergency Medicine Consortium, now Emergency Medicine for Rural and Indigenous Communities (emRIC) consortium.

Janice Shin-Kim, MD

New York–Presbyterian Columbia University Medical Center

Dr. Janice Shin-Kim is an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at the Columbia University Medical Center. Dr. Shin-Kim completed her Emergency Medicine residency at Mount Sinai Beth Israel, where she served as a chief resident during her final year. She completed her two-year fellowship in Simulation at NYU/Bellevue Hospital.

Dr. Shin-Kim is currently the simulation director for the Columbia Emergency Medicine Department. Her interests include medical simulation, virtual reality, and faculty development.

Vijay Kannan, MD

Vijay Kannan, MD, is the Director of the Office of Clinical Performance and Health Impact at IHS Headquarters. In this role he oversees the agency’s work on the monitoring and evaluation of clinical care, on academic affairs, on telehealth, and on credentialing and privileging. He previously worked as the Director of the Office of Quality Management for the Phoenix Area (Arizona, Utah, Nevada) IHS. His work there focused on identifying systemic issues in quality of care and addressing them in a context-relevant and data-driven manner. Prior to working for IHS he served as a Technical Officer at the World Health Organization (WHO) Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. He worked in the Clinical Services and Systems Unit, where he was the clinical focal point to the Quality Team and worked to develop emergency, surgical, and intensive care capacity in resource-limited settings as well to optimize the integration of care platforms across the care continuum. Before joining WHO, he served as faculty at Harvard Medical School, where his academic focus was on the use of registry-based analytics and applied implementation science methodology for quality improvement. He spent approximately one-third of his time in Africa as a consultant to WHO. He is an emergency physician by training, obtaining his Master’s in Public Health and fellowship in Global Health from the Harvard School of Public Health and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

Emma Cortes, DO

Brown University

Chris Buresh, MD, MPH, DTM&H

University of Washington

Chris Buresh is a pediatrician and emergency medicine physician who has also trained in public health and infectious disease. His focus has been around the care of marginalized populations who struggle with housing, chaotic drug use, and vulnerability to communicable disease. He works at Harborview Medical Center and Seattle Children’s Hospital emergency departments as an associate professor and helps to direct the emergency medicine residency for the University of Washington. He has been involved in harm reduction and advocacy since 2015 and has helped to create protocols for the treatment of opioid use disorder in adults and children. He hopes to teach future generations of emergency physicians that being a good physician means being involved far beyond the walls of the emergency department.

Karrin Weisenthal, MD, MHS

Boston Medical Center

Karri Weisenthal, M.D./M.H.S. is an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at the Boston University Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine, the Associate Medical Director of Faster Paths to Treatment, Boston Medical Center’s low-barrier addiction bridge clinic, and the Medical Director for the integrated ED Addiction Consult Team. She graduated cum laude from the Yale School of Medicine and completed her residency training in Emergency Medicine and Addiction Medicine fellowship at Boston Medical Center.

Dr. Weisenthal is an active researcher in the fields of Emergency and Addiction Medicine, and she was awarded the SAEM Foundation/NIDA Mentor Facilitated Training Award to develop a curriculum on the incorporation of harm reduction into the care of patients who access emergency services. Her current research interests include improving initiation and access to medications for opioid use disorder in the emergency department (ED) with an equity lens, ensuring smooth transitions of care from the ED to outpatient settings, and integrating a harm reduction approach into the care of patients in the ED.

Callan Fockele, MD, MS

University of Washington

Dr. Callan Fockele is an emergency physician with advanced training in population health research and addiction medicine. She works clinically in the Harborview Medical Center Emergency Department and Healthcare in Housing program. She is dedicated to broadening the addiction services provided to the most vulnerable patients seeking emergency care in our community.
Dr. Fockele is a member of Research with Expert Advisors on Drug Use (READU), a group of both academically trained and community-trained researchers with lived and living experience of substance use. Her community-engaged research focuses on improving outcomes for people who use drugs. She studies how contingency management and the community reinforcement approach can be integrated into permanent supportive housing for residents who use methamphetamine, and she is interested in the impact of sub-acute stabilization centers and field-based initiation of buprenorphine on opioid overdose survivors. She receives funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the University of Washington Addictions, Drug & Alcohol Institute.

Leon D. Sanchez, MD, MPH

Brigham and Women's Hospital

Dr. Leon Sanchez is currently the Chief of Emergency Medicine at the MGB Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital. Prior to that he was the Vice Chair for Network Operations at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He is an Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at Harvard Medical School with over 100 peer reviewed publications. He is an accomplished physician executive with over 20 years of healthcare experience. He is a nationally recognized expert in the field of Emergency Medicine Operations and has lectured both nationally and internationally.

Areas of recent focus include operational improvement, patient flow and throughput optimization, queuing, and schedule optimization. His clinical experience spans a large variety of Emergency Departments both in terms of size and resources. His research innovations have been implemented in academic and non academic settings.

Dr. Sanchez received his Doctor of Medicine from Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. He earned his Masters of Public Health from Columbia University and completed his Emergency Medicine residency training at Jacobi Medical Center/Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He has been practicing in Massachusetts since 2001.

Daniel L. Shaw, MD, MCSO

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

Dr. Daniel Shaw is an Emergency Physician and Assistant Director of ED Operations at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. After completing training in Emergency Medicine and ED Administration at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), he joined the faculty at BIDMC and Harvard Medical School, where he provides clinical care, supervises trainees, conducts research, and serves in administrative roles. He also obtained a Master of Clinical Service Operations (MCSO) at Harvard Medical School to further formal training in health care management.

Dr. Shaw's research expertise focuses on operational efficiency and patient transfers within healthcare systems. He practices clinically in the Emergency Department at BIDMC, a Harvard-Affiliated tertiary center, with added patient care and leadership experience in community Emergency Department settings.

Meredith Thompson, MD, MAEd, FACEP

University of Florida

Dr. Thompson earned a B.S. from the University of Florida (UF), and completed her medical training at the University of Virginia. She continued her residency education in Emergency Medicine at the University of Virginia, where she served as chief resident and also completed a fellowship in Medical Education. After fellowship, Dr. Thompson joined the UF faculty in 2018 and completed her Masters of Education in 2024. She divides her clinical time between four clinical sites including the main adult ED, the pediatric ED, and the freestanding EDs at Springhill and Kanapaha.

Dr. Thompson serves as the department's Vice Chair of Education and the Director of Learning Environment for the UF COM Office of Student Affairs. Her current scholarly interests include trainee support, clerkship assessment and curriculum development, novel educational delivery models, and improving the learning environment.

Christopher McStay, MD, MBA, FACEP

Columbia University

Dr. McStay's current role is as an Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine and Vice Chair for Clinical Operations at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York. His previous experience includes serving as Vice President of Clinical Affairs and Assistant Medical Director at Medcor, Inc., and at the University of Colorado School of Medicine as Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine and Chief of Clinical Operations. Earlier in his career, Dr. McStay worked at New York University School of Medicine and Bellevue Hospital Center, where he also served as Chief of Emergency Services.  

Dr. McStay's acquired an Executive MBA in Health Administration from the University of Colorado Denver Business School and an MD from Weill Cornell Medical College. His commitment to advancing his expertise is further demonstrated by his fellowship in the Academy of Wilderness Medicine and his participation in the Clinical Quality Fellowship Program at the Greater New York Hospital Association and United Hospital Fund.

Charlotte W. Croteau, MD

Massachusetts General Hospital

Dr. Croteau is a second year fellow in Emergency Department Administration at Mass General Hospital, an attending physician in the Department of Emergency Medicine, and the Associate Director of the Emergency Department Observation Unit. She has particular interest in ED operations, multidisciplinary team management, ED staff experience, and observation medicine.

Joseph Ciano, DO, MPH, MS

University of Pennsylvania

Joey Ciano, DO, MPH, MS is an Emergency Medicine (EM) Physician and Clinical Assistant Professor of EM at Penn Medicine in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

He completed EM Residency at New York Presbyterian- Brooklyn Methodist Hospital in Brooklyn, NY and Global EM Fellowship at Northwell-LIJ Medical Center in Queens, New York. He works as a visiting faculty member and Associate Course Director of the Masters in EM (MEM) Certification Program in Duragpur, India, a 3-year EM physician training program. He is a content contributor and author for the International Emergency Medicine Education Project, an IFEM-endorsed initiative that provides free educational content for medical students and junior EM trainees. He is the Assistant Gray Literature Editor for the Global EM Literature Review, a group that reviews and disseminates high-quality research in Global EM.

J. Austin Lee, MD, MPH

Indiana University

J. Austin Lee, MD MPH DTMH, is a practicing emergency medicine doctor, and currently works with Indiana University Health. Dr. Lee obtained an MPH at the George Washington University before going to medical school at Indiana University. He completed his emergency medicine residency at the University of Virginia, and then worked at Brown University where he was a part of the Global Emergency Medicine fellowship. Austin has worked on a number of international emergency medicine projects, and is actively engaged in supporting the development of emergency medicine in Kenya. He serves a number of roles on different committees working to improve global health, including with SAEM GEMA, the ACEP International Section, and the International Federation for Emergency Medicine.

Sandy L. Werner, MD, FAEMUS

MetroHealth Medical Center

Current positions/appointments
Vice Chair and Ultrasound Fellowship Director, Department of Emergency Medicine, MetroHealth Medical Center
Professor of Emergency Medicine, Case Western Reserve University

Background Information
I graduated from the Medical College of Virginia in 2000 and completed my emergency medicine residency and ultrasound fellowship at MetroHealth Medical Center/CCF/CWRU in 2004. My academic interests are ultrasound, resident education, and faculty development/leadership .I am currently on the Emergency Ultrasound Fellowship Accreditation Council. I have published EM ultrasound manuscripts in the major EM journals, spoken at regional and national conferences on topics related to ultrasound, education, faculty development and leadership skills. I recently completed coaching certificate training and have extensive experience in administrative leadership positions, including Medical Staff President and Chair of the Medical Executive Committee.

I previously served as the editor for Tintinalli’s AccessEM To the Point: Clinical Reviews, and as a peer reviewer for Annals of Emergency Medicine and Pediatric EM Reports. I was recently appointed as a member of the Emergency Ultrasound Fellowship Accreditation Counsil, and am currently on the SAEM Faculty Development Committee and a member of AWAEM's Administrative Leadership Group

Shannon W. Stephens, EMTP, CCEMTP

University of Alabama at Birmingham

I am a paramedic and researcher, specializing in the design and execution of clinical trials in emergency care. With over 25 years of experience, I have established myself as a content expert in bioethics and the regulatory pathways of “Exception From Informed Consent” studies. I have developed a novel and innovative way of conducting “community consultation and public disclosure”, one of the key regulatory steps mandated by the Department of Health and Human Services and the Food and Drug Administration. This new method leverages the power of social media and other interactive media platforms and can be executed centrally, thus limiting the work of the local investigators. This approach has gained widespread acceptance by Institutional Review Boards, Ethics Committees, and participating clinical sites and is the model used for over 170 enrollment sites, from 6 different multicenter clinical trial networks in the United States.

Manish I. Shah, MD, MS

Stanford University

Manish I. Shah, MD, MS is a Professor of Emergency Medicine and Pediatrics at Stanford University School of Medicine. Dr. Shah is an EMS researcher, advocate, and educator and served on the National Emergency Medical Services Advisory Committee (NEMSAC) and was a past chair of the Emergency Medical Services (EMS) subcommittee for the American Academy of Pediatrics Section of Emergency Medicine. His research has focused on developing, implementing, and studying outcomes related to evidence-based protocols for various clinical conditions, including seizures and airway management. Dr. Shah is currently the Principal Investigator for the Pediatric Dose Optimization for Seizures in Emergency Medical Services (PediDOSE) study and Co-Investigator for the Pediatric Prehospital Airway Resuscitation Trial (Pedi-PART), which are both Exception from Informed Consent (EFIC) studies funded by the National Institutes of Health and are being conducted in the Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network (PECARN). Dr. Shah also serves on the Executive Committee of PECARN as the Nodal Principal Investigator for the Charlotte, Houston, and Milwaukee Prehospital (CHaMP) research node.