People

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.

Lauren K. Stewart, MD, MS

Trustees of Indiana University

"Targeting Metabolic Syndrome from the Emergency Department through Mixed-Methods"

Dr. Stewart is an assistant professor of emergency medicine and physician-scientist at Indiana University School of Medicine. She completed both her medical school training and her emergency medicine residency at Indiana University. Following residency, Dr. Stewart joined the faculty, where she has since completed a master’s degree in clinical research and a graduate certificate in innovation and implementation science. Her research focuses on the role of obesity and the related metabolic syndrome in venous thromboembolism, specifically its impact on outcomes affecting patient quality of life. As the recipient of the SAEMF Large Project Grant, Dr. Stewart will pilot a multifaceted intervention aimed at targeting metabolic syndrome risk factors from the emergency department setting.

Evangelia Murray, MD

Denver Health

"Comprehensive Emergency Department-based Social Needs Screening"

Dr. Murray is a clinical research fellow in the department of emergency medicine at Denver Health and the University of Colorado. After completion of her bachelor’s degree at Tufts University, she received her medical degree at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School. Dr. Murray completed her emergency medicine residency at Denver Health. She will complete her Clinical Research Fellowship at Denver Health and Master of Public Health at the Colorado School of Public Health in the Spring of 2024. She will use the SAEMF Research Training Grant to evaluate the implementation of an ED-based digital self-administered social needs screening tool workflow that optimizes opportunity for screening, reduces bias, and ultimately allows staff to focus on interventions for those in need.

Nicholas Harrison, MD

Ashleigh Omorogbe, MD

PGY3

George Washington University Hospital

Ashleigh Omorogbe is a PGY3 emergency medicine resident at George Washington University Hospital. She received a BS in biological sciences and a BA in health administration policy at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, and then spent a year working in Baltimore conducting violence prevention research and helping develop programs to serve Baltimore city youth. She completed her medical education at Indiana University, where she served as president of the Indiana State Medical Association, Medical Student Section.

Onyeka Otugo, MD, MPA

Attending Physician

Brigham and Women's Hospital

Dr. Onyeka Otugo is an Attending Physician and Director of Research in the Office of Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Social Justice (IDEaS) in the department of emergency medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital with an interest in health policy, racial health disparities, and access to care issues.

Nancy Jacobson, MD

Froedtert Hospital

Dr. Nancy Jacobson received her Bachelor of Science degree in Biology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2009 and her Doctor of Medicine degree at the Medical College of Wisconsin in 2014. She went on to complete an emergency medicine residency at the Medical College of Wisconsin, ending in 2017. She splits her clinical practice between Froedtert Hospital and the Clement J. Zablocki VA Medical Center. She is committed to improving patient quality safety and experience in the emergency medicine department, as well as being dedicated to resident education and wellbeing.

Martin Huecker, MD

Associate Professor & Research Director, Department of Emergency Medicine

University of Louisville

Dr. Martin Huecker, MD, is co-editor in chief of the free, open access Journal of Wellness. He is an Associate Professor and the Research Director and Wellness Director in the Emergency Medicine department at the University of Louisville. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Alpha Omega Alpha honor societies. Dr. Huecker graduated from U of L's EM residency program (Chief Resident) in 2011. He works full-time seeing patients and teaching residents in the emergency department. His diverse research interests include substance use, accidental hypothermia, and healthcare professional wellness. Dr. Huecker is also a Certified Lifestyle Medicine Physician (DipABLM). He loves books, trail runs, dogs, and coffee. His wife is an OB/GYN and they have 4 children with cool names.

Susan Wojcik, PhD, ATC

Associate Professor & Director of Research, Department of Emergency Medicine

SUNY Upstate Medical University

Dr. Susan Wojcik is an Associate Professor in the Emergency Medicine Department at SUNY Upstate Medical University with over 23 years of emergency medicine research and education experience. She holds a PhD in Health Sciences from Trident University, a Master of Science in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Kentucky, a Bachelor of Science in Ceramic Engineering from Alfred University, and was a certified athletic trainer for 32 years. As the Director of Research since 2017, she provides oversight, leadership, and mentorship in all aspects of research and scholarly activities for the department. Dr. Wojcik is also the director of many educational programs including a fellow research seminar series, the residency research requirement, and a medical student research elective. When she is not conducting research and teaching, Dr. Wojcik enjoys doing home improvement projects and horseback riding.

Megan Rybarczyk, MD, MPH, FACEP

University of Pennsylvania

Megan Rybarczyk, MD, MPH, FACEP is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Emergency Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine and is the Global Emergency Medicine Fellowship Director. Her experiences in the field of Global Health have involved clinical work, research, and/or education all over the world in countries such as Bangladesh, 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 and emergency care systems development, particularly in low resource settings.