People

Tsuyoshi Mitarai, MD, FACEP, FAAEM

Stanford University

Dr. Tsuyoshi Mitarai was born and grew up in Japan until he was 17. He graduated from University of Rochester School of Medicine in 2002 and completed his combined internal medicine/emergency medicine residency at University of Maryland in 2007. He finished his critical care fellowship at Stanford University in 2009, and stayed on as a faculty to attend in emergency department as well as medical ICU. He created an Emergency Critical Care Program (ECCP) in 2017 to improve the quality of care for critically ill patients in emergency department (https://www.acep.org/how-we-serve/sections/critical-care-medicine/news/july-2018/stanford-emergency-critical-care-program-eccp/). He was the first author of the manuscript that demonstrated 6 % decrease in inhospital mortality associated with the ECCP (Crit Care Med. 2023 PMID: 37010317). He earned multiple teaching awards including Outstanding Educator Award (2019, Stanford University, CA), The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation Award for Excellence in Clinical Teaching, (2015, 2019, Stanford University, CA), and National Emergency Medicine Excellence in Bedside Teaching Award (2024, ACEP). The ECCP received 2024 Society of Critical Care Medicine Patient Safety First! Award (2025, SCCM)

Catherine Weaver, MD

University of California

Dr. Catherine Weaver, MD, is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Emergency Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and is the Medical Director of the UCLA Health Homeless Healthcare Collaborative (HHC). She is a founding leader of this innovative program that launched in January 2022 to bring the high-quality healthcare available at UCLA Health to our unhoused neighbors, meeting them where they are in the community on the streets, in encampments, and in shelters. The team has expanded from two mobile units to six full-time teams bringing primary care, urgent care, behavioral health and addiction services, and social support to patients throughout Los Angeles County. In addition to overseeing HHC clinical operations and quality and supporting the growth and innovation of this program, she collaborates closely with other street medicine teams and academic, government, and community partners to promote equitable access to healthcare and social support services throughout Los Angeles County and beyond. She is a member of the inaugural Advisory Committee for the California Street Medicine Collaborative, an organization consisting of street medicine providers, managed care groups, and other stakeholders throughout the state of California brought together to influence policy, advocate for financial support, and collaborate on program design.

Dr. Weaver also continues to practice Emergency Medicine. In her professional career, she has always been driven by one of the central principles of the Emergency Department (ED) as an entry point to healthcare: providing care to all regardless of their backgrounds. Prior to her role with HHC, she served as Assistant Medical Director of the UCLA Ronald Reagan ED. She has obtained multiple grants to establish and maintain a Substance Use Navigator program in both UCLA EDs and is currently collaborating on efforts to expand this into an ED-based Community Health Worker program. She continues to participate in numerous activities in the ED, hospital, and UCLA Health system to develop pathways to compassionate, equitable care for all. In addition to homeless healthcare, she has an interest in addiction medicine. She is a fierce advocate for fighting stigma not only in healthcare, but in society in general.

Dr. Weaver earned a bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry and Classics at the University of Colorado at Boulder and received her medical training at Creighton University. She completed residency in Emergency Medicine at UCLA-Ronald Reagan/Olive View, followed by a fellowship in Emergency Medicine Administration with UCLA/VEP Healthcare. She is a Fellow of both the American Academy of Emergency Medicine and the American College of Emergency Physicians.

Chase Palisch

Hanin Ali, BS

I am a graduate from University of Minnesota- Twin Cities. I am currently a third-year medical student at Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine. My hobbies include reading, hammocking, hanging out with friend's pets, and any water activity. I've recently got into crafts with air dry clay.

Erin F. Shufflebarger, MD, MSPH

University of Alabama at Birmingham

Dr. Shufflebarger is an Assistant Professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). She completed EM residency, a combined fellowship in Social Emergency Medicine & Population Health (SEMPH) and Global Emergency Medicine, and a Masters of Science in Public Health with concentration in health outcomes research at UAB. Dr. Shufflebarger is the fellowship director for the SEMPH fellowship and the co-director of the Equal Access Birmingham Street Medicine Clinic. Dr. Shufflebarger is also the Assistant Clerkship Director for the EM clerkship and Core Educational Faculty for the EM residency. Her academic interests include medical education and local/global health disparities.

Rachel Elkin, MD

Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons

Rachel Elkin is a pediatric emergency physician and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics (in Emergency Medicine) at Columbia (New York Presbyterian-Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital), where she also serves as simulation division faculty within the Department of Emergency Medicine. After medical school – where she also obtained a master’s degree in clinical research – she went on to complete her pediatric residency and pediatric emergency medicine fellowship at Columbia, followed by a simulation fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital. Her academic interests center around measures of cognitive load and workload, as well as how novel technologies and instructional designs, particularly within simulation, impact educational, psychometric, and clinical outcomes.

Amelia Breyre, MD

City & County of San Francisco

Amelia M. Breyre is an Emergency Medicine and EMS physician. She completed medical school at the University of Pennsylvania, residency at Highland Hospital, and fellows in EMS/Disaster Medicine at UCSF-ZSFGH. She recently started working as the EMS Medical Director for the City & County of San Francisco. She has a research and operational interest in improving end of life care in the out of hospital setting and has published extensively on the topic.

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.