2024 Leadership Academy Graduates EMRA

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Erin Baker, M.S., D.O., Leadership Academy Graduate 2024

Lauren Rosenfeld.jpg Program: University of Florida - Jacksonville

Capstone Project: Emergency Medicine Blueprints:
A Business Curriculum for the Developing Physician

A 4-part lecture series focused on high yield topics outside of medicine all doctors should know. Catered to Emergency Medicine residents, but applicable to all specialties. The curriculum is designed to be built into didactic curriculum as 30 minute to 1 hour sessions quarterly.

What would you tell future EMRA leaders about your experience in EMRA's Leadership Academy? This program was a good experience to grow as a leader and receive an introduction to topics not always explored in residency.

Karimah Best, MD, Leadership Academy Graduate 2024

Lauren Rosenfeld.jpg Program: Vassar Brothers Medical Center

Capstone Project: For my project, I created a standardized and sustainable patient hand-off template to be used amongst residents in the emergency department. The goal was to allow for efficiency, while ensuring continuation of high-quality patient care and prioritize safety. I created a template following suggestions from I-PASS, SBAR, and Safer Sign-out Model. I incorporated information I thought would be helpful based on how our emergency department operates. Ultimately, hand-offs are a part of the specialty and bringing standardization to my program can help to avoid faulty handoffs.

What would you tell future EMRA leaders about your experience in EMRA's Leadership Academy? This experience has truly been life changing. Whether you’re considering a future leadership position or want to grow professionally, the academy will help foster your teamwork skills. I enjoyed the interactive sessions, as it provided opportunity for personal reflection and improvement. I have noticed a positive difference in my communication with my colleagues, have gained new skills, and a better understanding of what it means to be a leader. This past year has been rewarding and I have learned so much from all the guest lecturers. You will come out of this experience a stronger and well-rounded physician.

Kyle Cohen, DO, NRP, Leadership Academy Graduate 2024

Lauren Rosenfeld.jpg Program: University of Alabama at Birmingham

Capstone Project: Development of a resident education track in simulation.
With the increasing use and importance of simulation in emergency medicine, I worked with the simulation faculty to develop a curriculum that allows residents to further understand the workings of simulation. One component of the track is the completion of two in house simulation courses that emphasize how simulation is run and how a case is developed. Then, the resident can choose to develop and run an immersive sim case with the assistance of the sim faculty, or conduct a research based scholarly activity. Finally, the resident will be an integral part in simulations for the rotating medical students.

What would you tell future EMRA leaders about your experience in EMRA's Leadership Academy? This is a fantastic experience. It allowed me to further develop my leadership style and further understand the culture of emergency medicine as well as the world in general. The guest speakers are truly experts in the fields that presented and provided unique learning opportunities. This is by far one of the most enriching experiences I’ve been a part of, and I am grateful for the opportunity.

Alex Fenn, MD, Leadership Academy Graduate 2024

Lauren Rosenfeld.jpg Program: University of North Carolina

Capstone Project: I am currently a first year Clinical Informatics Fellow at the University of North Carolina (where I also completed my ED residency!). Combining my ED training as well as my interest in informatics, I worked on an interdisciplinary team with the UNC Information Services Division to create a curriculum regarding providing ED-specific EHR training to ED residents. This involved both initial training in how to most effectively use the EHR for incoming interns as well as specific sessions regarding EHR personalization and efficiency to the entire ED residency.

What would you tell future EMRA leaders about your experience in EMRA's Leadership Academy? Leadership Academy gives you the opportunity to learn from so many leaders in the wonderful field that is EM, and the chance to apply that knowledge to your personal and professional life.

Adam Huynh, MD, Leadership Academy Graduate 2024

Lauren Rosenfeld.jpg Program: New York Presbyterian Cornell and Columbia

Capstone Project: Currently working on collecting trauma data and procedure numbers from our clinical sites to better characterize/quantify the breadth and depth of procedures that emergency medicine residents are exposed to.

What would you tell future EMRA leaders about your experience in EMRA's Leadership Academy? It has been a great experience. Lots of great speakers and inspiring to hear from some of the leaders of emergency medicine in the country!

Dazi Irving, MD, Leadership Academy Graduate 2024

Lauren Rosenfeld.jpg Program: Nuvance Health Emergency Medicine

Capstone Project: I am working on a QI project addressing the impact of shift scheduling on burn out, resident wellness and work-life balance. I am part of a residency program that recently converted from a solely 12-hour shift model to a hybrid model including 8 hour and 10 hour shifts. These changes have improved wellness overall, however residents continue facing challenges such as disruption of circadian rhythm, less days off in a row as they are required to spend more days working in the ED to meet hour requirements, increased number of sign-outs at the conclusion of shorter shifts. This QI project utilizes surveys measuring overall resident satisfaction and impact on clinical knowledge. It discusses small changes to our current hybrid model and how that would further affect resident satisfaction.

What would you tell future EMRA leaders about your experience in EMRA's Leadership Academy? This program is a great way to grow your confidence in your leadership skills. Use this time to learn from known leaders within the specialty of Emergency Medicine while also networking across several different residency programs.

Jacqueline King, MD, Leadership Academy Graduate 2024

Lauren Rosenfeld.jpg Program: ChristianaCare

Capstone Project: For my capstone project, I served as the resident representative on the Claims Advisory Group at my institution. The group discusses claims and/or lawsuits that are preparing to go to trial or are being recommended for settlement. The group helps inform the decision as well as the settlement authority, for those cases determined to be ones to settle. The committee includes the Chief Physician Executive, CFO, CNO, COO, General Counsel, Deputy General Counsel, Chair of the Department of Surgery, Chair of OB/GYN, and Chair of Medicine. The meeting is run by the VP of Risk Management.

Before Leadership Academy, I’m not sure I would have pursued this kind of opportunity for myself. Like many others, I struggle with imposter syndrome and wonder what I could contribute if given a seat at the table. Reflecting on leadership felt particularly meaningful through the end of medical school as I transitioned to residency. It’s been a grounding and rewarding experience, and I’m thankful to EMRA & our Co-Chairs Kathleen & Olivia.

What would you tell future EMRA leaders about your experience in EMRA's Leadership Academy? Leadership Academy felt like a way to indulge in myself. Developing leadership skills is a constant and continuous process, but I really valued having the opportunity to work on those skills in a structured & intentional setting. Hearing from a variety of speakers encouraged me to reflect on leadership from different perspectives and to think about the kind of physician and leader I want to become.

Austin Miller, DO, Leadership Academy Graduate 2024

Lauren Rosenfeld.jpg Program: OhioHealth Doctors Hospital

Capstone Project: My project is currently ongoing, as I just started residency last month. I am working to create a "Psychiatric Care Cart" for use in our emergency department. The cart will contain items like stuffed animals, coloring books with dull/non-pointy crayons, and other inherently harmless items to help patients with psychiatric emergencies in the ED (especially those who are on hold for days) feel more comfortable. I plan on making this effort into a QI project that will (hopefully) be replicable in other EDs across our health system depending on the impact it has on patient care.

What would you tell future EMRA leaders about your experience in EMRA's Leadership Academy? The Leadership Academy has honestly been a great experience. I feel like I've had the opportunity to hear and learn from many great leaders in our field and plan on using what I've learned to be a better physician leader and person.

Aleta Mizner, DO, MPAS, Leadership Academy Graduate 2024

Lauren Rosenfeld.jpg Program: Allegheny General Hospital

Capstone Project: The project I completed was one designed to help build positivity in our residency program, demonstrate the importance of a team and provide encouragement to get residency tasks complete. For the project, I helped to implement a "House Cup" Competition. Each resident and some faculty took a brief personality quiz to divide them into one of four houses. The houses are modeled after the Hogwarts Houses but named after prior attendings from my program, that left a lasting impact.

Each house consists of 3 attendings, 2 or 3 PGY3 residents, 2 or 3 PGY2 residents and 3 PGY1 residents. The residents wore the actual "sorting hat" from Harry Potter in front of all residents and their individual teams were announced.

Attached is the scoring rubric for how residents will be able to receive points or lose points. If attendings write a shout out to a resident, with the addition of bonus points, they will be announced at weekly conference. I designed a box and forms, that were placed into the ED, that the attendings can complete on shift and remove weekly for review.

I created a score board to hang in the ED Resident Lounge, the ED Residency Office and the actual ED. I plan to update scores weekly. The winning team will be announced at our annual retreat in February 2025 after the ITE exam. The winning team wins a shift reduction from March to June of 2025 during the ED scheduling block of their choice. A House Cup will also be purchased to place in the residency lounge and the winning team will be written on the trophy.

So far, we have been using the House Cup for one month and the residents are very engaged. They are enjoying the competition aspect while the program has also seen an increase in the number of procedures logged and Rosh Review exam quizzes complete.

This project is a great example how being a leader and implementing a team building activity can increase the moral and provide positive reinforcement for tasks that need completed.

What would you tell future EMRA leaders about your experience in EMRA's Leadership Academy? I greatly enjoyed my experience with EMRA Leadership Academy. I felt that the presenter each month was dynamic, engaged, well prepared, and helped to teach me a crucial learning tool that I can use to help build my leadership skills. I also enjoyed how each month the presentation topics were different, and I never felt like the same leadership skills were re-iterated. After completing this course, I now feel as if I have the tools, I need to continue to develop into the great leader I strive to be as I continue my Medical Education Fellowship and progress into a hopeful future academic position.

Justin Morin, DO, Leadership Academy Graduate 2024

Lauren Rosenfeld.jpg Program: Central Michigan University

Capstone Project: Current chief residents, fellow second year residents, new interns, and I collaborated to create “The Meeting Minutes”: simple summaries of our residency didactic sessions. Our intent behind this quality improvement project was to broaden the educational rigor beyond our weekly didactic sessions. We imagined that one page summaries of conference lectures would provide the current and future residents with a framework for lessons learned from our attending speakers, provide a space to praise efforts of co-residents in publications, and disseminate announcements centrally. Although formal evaluation of the effort has not been measured, we included weekly evaluations to ensure utility of this project. Thankfully, we have only received positive feedback from residents and program leadership. Future directions of the project would include evaluation of retention of information from these summaries. Additionally, with so many people involved, we aim to collaborate and create a library of material from lectures.

What would you tell future EMRA leaders about your experience in EMRA's Leadership Academy? EMRA Leadership Academy helped bring together residents and amplify the lessons from amazing Emergency Medicine physicians. Collectively, we've benefited from podcast hosts, current/past presidents of EMRA, and giants in the field of EM. I'm looking forward to the application of lessons learned during these sessions!

Aarif Motorwala, MD, Leadership Academy Graduate 2024

Lauren Rosenfeld.jpg Program: AdventHealth Orlando

Capstone Project: We developed a community initiative in which Emergency Medicine residents would rotate at a free primary-care community clinical that provides healthcare follow-up to our primarily uninsured patient population to further expose residents to the social determinants of health that impact patient care in the Emergency Department by broadening residents understanding of the challenges patients face with lack of access to reliable follow-up.

What would you tell future EMRA leaders about your experience in EMRA's Leadership Academy? EMRA's Leadership Academy was an invaluable experience that helped me develop a multifaceted approach to leadership within Emergency Medicine. It gave me the opportunity to help pick the brains of the leaders in our field and learn the skills that they developed to excel in their endeavors. It helped broaden my horizons to all the opportunities that Emergency Medicine has to offer that we often times don't get regular exposure to. It challenged and encouraged me to integrate the skills that I learned into my day-to-day clinical practice to help improve team building and patient care.

Annie Nyffeler, DO, Leadership Academy Graduate 2024

Lauren Rosenfeld.jpg Program: University of Nebraska Medical Center

Capstone Project: Digitalized and organized our ED protocols for the department + Boarding quantitative research to help improve our nursing protocol and understand nursing perspectives.

What would you tell future EMRA leaders about your experience in EMRA's Leadership Academy? Leadership academy has truly been such a great experience in honing my leadership skills. The sessions were thought-provoking and well planned. I oftentimes will think of them during my shifts. This was an excellent use of my time in residency and would highly recommend it to anyone.

Ashik Rajak, MBBS, Leadership Academy Graduate 2024

Lauren Rosenfeld.jpg Program: Kathmandu Medical College Teaching Hospital

Capstone Project: Initiating an Emergency Medicine Interest Group (EMIG) - I initiated an EMIG formation in my medical school in Nepal in collaboration with the EM residency program extending the same concept across other medical schools and looking forward to extend it country-wide in the days to come. Currently we have over 100 med students as members and we continue to grow. We have hosted community outreach programs, bi-weekly journal clubs, hiking day with case scenario discussions, awareness campaigns and teaching programs for children in local schools.

What would you tell future EMRA leaders about your experience in EMRA's Leadership Academy? The Leadership Academy has been a great opportunity to hear leaders in our field discuss leadership. I am honored to have learned so much from some of the most influential minds in Emergency Medicine.

Angelica Rego, MD, Leadership Academy Graduate 2024

Lauren Rosenfeld.jpg Program: University of Virginia

Capstone Project: Development of an assessment and treatment pathway for acute migraine in the emergency department

What would you tell future EMRA leaders about your experience in EMRA's Leadership Academy? This has been a very formative experience that has provided me with practical knowledge and tools to make me a better leader, teammate, and doctor. I would recommend this to anyone interested in personal development, regardless of what your future career plans entail.

Nick Rodriguez, MD, Leadership Academy Graduate 2024

Lauren Rosenfeld.jpg Program: UCSF-ZSFG

Capstone Project: Development of an alumni mentorship program for EM-bound students from my graduating medical school. As the inaugural graduating class, much of our mentorship came from faculty or residents from KP San Diego which was physically far from our campus in Los Angeles. The goal of this program was to create an internal mentorship network that pairs recent graduate residents with EM-bound medical students to support and encourage their application to EM.

What would you tell future EMRA leaders about your experience in EMRA's Leadership Academy? I was fortunate to be able to maintain connections with my medical school after graduating, and so was able to lay the foundations for this project before graduating and then continue working on it during the first few months of my intern year. For future cohort members who are participating during the end of their MS4/beginning of PGY-1 period, think about this transition period and if you need to start/finish a project either as an MS4 or a PGY-1, or if there is a project that you could continue working on during this bridge period.

Alexandra Sappington, DO, MS, Leadership Academy Graduate 2024

Lauren Rosenfeld.jpg Program: Louisiana State University- New Orleans

Capstone Project: 1. Emergency Medicine Residency Website Wellness Pages - A Content Analysis. The COVID-19 pandemic impacted the way medical students seek residency positions. In 2020, ACGME advocated for virtual interviews. Most emergency medicine interviews in 2023 remained virtual and this format will persist for the foreseeable future. Since students are not evaluating programs in-person in most cases, residency websites are crucial for prospective residents. Resident wellness is critical for resident training and important to prospective residents; it follows that programs must be transparent about resident wellness on websites. This study aims to quantify the number of emergency medicine programs with wellness pages on their websites and identify themes portrayed on those pages.
2. Virtual Mentorship Series: I created a monthly mentorship zoom series for medical students who are #EMBound. We covered high yield topics from "Navigating VSLO- How To Apply For Sub-Is" to "What I Wish I Knew Before Going Into EM" which featured a panel of Emergency Medicine Residency Program Leaders.

What would you tell future EMRA leaders about your experience in EMRA's Leadership Academy? I am so glad I participated in EMRA's Leadership Academy and wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone contemplating the opportunity. This experience gave me insight as to who I am as a future leader in emergency medicine and pushed me out of my comfort zone, exposing me to new ideas and perspectives on a variety of approaches and strategies to leadership. You’ll gain invaluable insights from seasoned experts in the field and forge meaningful connections with future colleagues.

Melanie Schroeder, MD, Leadership Academy Graduate 2024

Lauren Rosenfeld.jpg Program: George Washington University

Capstone Project: For my capstone project, I wanted to improve our transitions to clinical shifts in the ED for both new EM interns as well as for off-service interns rotating in the ED. I created a How-To guide for all of these interns including both logistics in our EMR as well as how to prioritize tasks in the ED. I immediately delivered this information to EM interns that I worked with on teaching shifts, but it is now being delivered to all new interns who rotate through our ED as well as some APPs.

What would you tell future EMRA leaders about your experience in EMRA's Leadership Academy? It is a great opportunity to learn from leaders in the EM world as they offer pearls, tips and tricks, and concrete advice for how to develop in your leadership position.

Arthur Sieron, MD, MSc, Leadership Academy Graduate 2024

Lauren Rosenfeld.jpg Program: Central Michigan University

Capstone Project: I completed a case poster presentation on a patient with SLE with multi-organ involvement.

A 32-year-old female with a history of SLE presented to the emergency department with a 3-day history of fever, myalgias, generalized weakness, shortness of breath, and right-sided chest pain. The patient was afebrile and tachycardic, with a malar rash. Laboratory studies revealed decreased WBCs (2.44 k/cmm), elevated AST (171 IU/L), elevated CK (630 IU/L), elevated ESR (77 mm/hr), and elevated troponin (139 ng/L). ECG was negative, echocardiogram showed trace pericardial effusion and cardiomyopathy with ejection fraction of 40%, and urinalysis showed proteinuria.

Patient was admitted for suspected lupus myocarditis. Anti-nuclear antibody panel was positive with a titer ≥1:1280. The patient’s clinical condition deteriorated, and she developed myositis, lupus encephalitis with aphasia, thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura, and lupus nephritis. The Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Disease Activity Index 2000 (SLEDAI-2K) was >35, suggesting multi-organ involvement and a need to escalate therapy. The patient was transferred to a tertiary facility and started on high dose cyclophosphamide, hydroxychloroquine, and corticosteroids which resulted in significant clinical improvement.

SLE with multi-organ involvement poses significant morbidity and mortality risk. Mainstay of treatment involves immunosuppressants or biological agents. Disease progression may involve cytopenias, serositis, nephritis, carditis, vasculopathy, and neurological complications including cerebritis, meningitis, polyneuropathy, seizures, and psychosis. Lupus nephritis and cerebritis are two of the most severe clinical manifestations that require a multidisciplinary approach and aggressive management.

What would you tell future EMRA leaders about your experience in EMRA's Leadership Academy? My experience with EMRA's Leadership Academy has been exceptionally positive. The lectures have exposed me to new discussions, ideas, and tools to agument my practice and support my growth, development, and leadership in the field of Emergency Medicine. I would wholeheartedly recommend it!

Chris Walsh, MD, Leadership Academy Graduate 2024

Lauren Rosenfeld.jpg Program: Georgetown / Washington Hospital Center

Capstone Project: One thing I have learned about leadership throughout this course, and during the beginning few months of residency, is that to be a leader, you have to have an understanding and appreciation for the other roles in the department.

At my program, we have a six week orientation that includes educational lectures, simulation experiences, and a handful of introductory shifts at our two main sites.

For my Capstone Project, I am working with program leadership to implement a day or two during this six week orientation whereby interns are paired with a senior nurse or a senior tech to "shadow" them for a day. In this way, interns will better understand the dynamic within the department, and the roles and responsibilities of other members of the Emergency Department team.

My hope is that the implementation of this shadowing program lays the foundation for interns to understand and appreciate the teamwork that exists within Emergency Medicine, and, importantly, allows them to grow confident in their role as a leader within the department.

What would you tell future EMRA leaders about your experience in EMRA's Leadership Academy? Sign up! It's a great introduction to EMRA, a great way to meet likeminded individuals, and a relatively low commitment activity!

2024 Leadership Academy Graduates