People

Peter C. Hou, MD

SAEM Bylaws Committee member

Brigham and Women's Hospital

My education and training started as medical student at New York Medical College and as categorical surgical intern in general surgery residency program at St. Vincent’s Medical Center of New York City, where I learned about emergency medicine. I took a year off to re-apply to emergency medicine and was accepted and completed emergency medicine residency training at King Drew Medical Center in south Los Angeles. The experiences during my emergency medicine training propelled me to seek out further training in critical care, and I completed an Anesthesia Critical Care fellowship at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. My qualifications include leadership roles in academics, non-profit organizations, and industry. For examples, I am a steering committee member of the NHLBI Prevention and Early Treatment of Acute Lung injury (PETAL) Network, President of the North American Taiwanese Medical Association (NATMA) New England Chapter, and a Special Consultant in Research and Education for iDoc Telehealth Solutions. My SAEM experiences date back to 2009 as a member. In 2016, I was a founding member of the Critical Care Medicine Interest Group, Chair-Elect in 2018-2019, and Chair in 2019-2021. In 2020-2021, I was a member of the Finance and Membership and Chair of the Market analysis/Under-represented institutions subcommittee. Since 2021, I continued to be active in the Critical Care Interest Group and joined the Research Committee. Currently, I am Co-Chair of Workforce subcommittee, Vice-Chair of Telehealth Interest Group, Co-Lead of a Research subcommittee, and members of the Airway Interest Group and Equity and Inclusion committee.

The by-laws govern the SAEM’s strategic plan to its mission and vision. Regarding what I hope to accomplish if elected, my objective is ensure that the by-laws are current, inclusive, and progressive and to inform and engage the leadership and membership. In doing so, I hope we can find ways to break down the walls of territorial governance, to work toward more cohesiveness among emergency medicine organizations, and to give a greater voice to the specialty of emergency medicine.

James Paxton, MD, MBA

Associate Professor and Director of Clinical Research

Wayne State University School of Medicine

James H. Paxton, MD MBA FACEP FAHA, is the Director of Clinical Research for Detroit Receiving Hospital and Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at Wayne State University Department of Emergency Medicine. He has served SAEM through various roles within the By-Laws, Awards, Grants, and Research Committees, including Chairman of the SAEM Research Committee (2021-2024). He received both his MD and MBA degrees from the University of Cincinnati (Cincinnati, OH), and completed EM residency training at Henry Ford Hospital (Detroit, MI). Dr. Paxton has served as core academic faculty for the Detroit EM residencies at both Sinai-Grace Hospital and Detroit Receiving Hospital since 2011, and has mentored hundreds of medical students and residents at Wayne State University during that time. He is an active clinical researcher and has served as PI for numerous industry- and publicly funded trials. He is the editor of several books on emergency medicine topics, and is a recognized expert and invited speaker for many regional, national and international lectures on emergent vascular access, cardiac arrest, and emergent resuscitation.

Cindy Hsing-Liang Hsu, MD, PhD, MS

Michigan Medicine

Dr. Cindy Hsu is an emergency medicine physician and surgical intensivist who cares for patients in Michigan Medicine’s Adult Emergency Department, Emergency Critical Care Center, and Trauma/Burn Intensive Care Unit. She received her undergraduate degree from the Johns Hopkins University and MD/PhD degree from Boston University with a doctoral degree in pharmacology & experimental therapeutics and biomedical neuroscience. She then completed her emergency medicine residency at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania followed by trauma/surgical critical care fellowship at the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center. Most recently, she completed a master’s program in clinical research design and statistical analysis at the University of Michigan. 

Dr. Hsu’s clinical expertise in caring for critically ill and cardiac arrest patients has reinforced her translational research on post-cardiac arrest neuroprotection and prognostication. She has dedicated significant time as an NHLBI K12 Scholar developing large animal cardiac arrest models to study neuroprotective therapies such as high-dose valproic acid, with plan to translate these findings to early-phase clinical trials. Dr. Hsu has expanded the translation of these swine models to study how resuscitative balloon occlusion of the aorta on effects prolonged cardiac arrest outcomes and aerosol generation during cardiopulmonary resuscitation. She has been continuously funded by the NHBLI K12 Career Development Award, NIH Loan Repayment Program, ZOLL Foundation, and most recently, a NINDS R61/33 Innovation Grant to Nurture Initial Translational Efforts that will enable Dr. Hsu to develop a swine model with severe neurologic brain injury to translate novel neurotherapeutics after cardiac arrest.

In addition to her dedications to translational cardiac arrest research, Dr. Hsu has served as the site principal investigator for several multicenter cardiac arrest clinical trials including ICECAP and ACCESS, as well as a lead investigator of a randomized feasibility trial of expedited out-of-hospital cardiac arrest transport called Extracorporeal Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation for Refractory Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest (EROCA). She has also been actively involved in the creation of resuscitation guidelines as a member on the International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation’s Advanced Life Support Task Force and the American Heart Association’s Emergency Cardiovascular Care Science Subcommittee.

Utsha G. Khatri, MD, MSHP

Assistant Professor, Emergency Medicine

Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Dr. Utsha Khatri, is an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She has a secondary appointment at the Institute for Health Equity Research, Department of Population Health Science and Policy. As a health services researcher, Dr. Khatri is interested in improving access, outcomes, and equity with regard to the health and health care of structurally marginalized populations. Her ongoing projects focus on the health care of individuals and communities affected by mass incarceration and those affected by substance use disorders. Dr. Khatri practices clinically as an attending emergency physician at Mount Sinai Hospital and at Elmhurst Hospital. Her current work is supported by a career development award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse.