2023 AASPD Council Candidates
Listed Alphabetically by Last Name
Candidates for Councilor – Critical Care
Candidates for Councilor – CT Anesthesia
- Chandrika Garner, MD, FASE
- Nader Nader, MD, PhD, FCCP, FACC, FAHA, FASA
- Jennie Ngai, MD, FASA
- Albert Tsai, MD
Candidate for Councilor – Obstetrics
Candidates for Councilor – Pain Medicine
Candidate for Councilor – Pediatrics
Candidate for Councilor – Regional Anesthesia
Candidate for Councilor – Critical Care
Anne Donovan, MD
University of California, San Francisco
I am the Program Director for the Anesthesia Critical Care Fellowship Program at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), as well as an Associate Professor in the Department of Anesthesia & Perioperative Care and the Division of Critical Care Medicine. While I am new to the PD position this year, I have been the APD for the past 7 years. I have extensive experience in Anesthesia and Critical Care education at my own institution, including development of didactic and simulation curriculum, evaluation of fellows, mentorship of trainees, recruitment of diverse applicants, and teaching in both formal and informal settings. I also have national leadership experience as a Question Author for the American Board of Anesthesiology Critical Care Medicine examination since 2015, and as an active member of committees through SOCCA, ASA, and other professional organizations.
The movement of trainees away from subspecialty training is a major threat facing the field of Anesthesiology. I seek the position of Councilor – Critical Care through AASPD to become involved in creating solutions to this problem. There is a need to make fellowship opportunities innovative and engaging in order to attract excellent candidates to fellowship positions. I believe that our community can demonstrate the value of fellowship training through the example we set. I have a particular interest in mentorship of women trainees to increase engagement in fellowship training and ultimately to achieve academic and career success.
As a Councilor, I would strongly advocate for the Critical Care program directors’ and our prospective and current trainees’ needs. I would seek to continuously evaluate our recruitment strategies, look for opportunities to develop educational resources, and give attention to the needs in our community.
Candidate for Councilor – Critical Care
Ameeka Pannu, MD
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
I am the Program Director for the Anesthesia Critical Care Medicine Fellowship at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, MA where I am also a staff anesthesiologist and intensivist. I am applying for the position of Councilor- Critical Care within the AASPD, where I have been one of the elected Councilors since 2021. I am so grateful for the opportunity to serve in this position for my first term and believe that another term in this role would allow me to further contribute to our subspecialty and role as educators within anesthesia.
As a Councilor of the AASPD I have been involved in decision-making that affects the fellowship program directors and thus our fellows. This includes our current discussion around optimization of the ABA APPLIED exam registration process so current fellows may take subspecialty exams immediately following completion of their training. I co-chaired a panel at last year’s annual meeting on fellowship applicants seeking dual training—a discussion that affects both our future colleagues and our current recruitment process. I am currently working on forums that maximize success for new program directors to allow them to seamlessly transition into their new roles.
Since I was first appointed to this position, I have garnered significant experience both as a program director and from an operations standpoint. In addition to committee roles within my department and institution, I am an active member of the Program Directors Advisory Council and the Clinical Practice Committee of the Society of Critical Care Anesthesiologists (SOCCA). The experience working with colleagues both locally and nationally has been invaluable in developing my communication and leadership skills, recognizing the trademarks of successful committees and organizations and learning how to implement successful strategies. I have also gained valuable insight into the various stakeholders.
In the Councilor role, I aim to be truly representative of Anesthesia Critical Care Fellowship Program Directors not only in communicating concerns but also resolving any issues and collaborating to optimize subspecialty education in our field. If elected to a second term, I am interested in facilitating innovative curricula that is collaborative across subspecialties to build didactics that we can all use to provide the best training for our fellows. Examples include specific subspecialty didactics like the critical care of parturients and wider topics like pain control in the continuum of periop care. I envision these as opportunities where program directors can share their expertise outside their own institutions.
I am passionate about securing the role of our current and future colleagues as leaders in academic medicine and will continue to be energetic in this role. Thank you for considering my application.
Candidate for Councilor – CT Anesthesia
Chandrika Garner, MD, FASE
Wake Forest School of Medicine
I have been the ACTA Fellowship Program Director at Wake Forest since 2018 and have been attending the SAAAPM meeting since then. In addition to being ACTA PD, I am also an Assistant Program Director for the Anesthesiology residency, a Fellow of the American Society of Echocardiography, and ABA applied examiner, a graduate of the Wake Forest Leadership Program for Physicians. I am an active member of the Society of Cardiovascular Anesthesiology and the communications liaison for Women in Cardiothoracic Anesthesiology. I served as the ACTA Councilor for AASPD from 2020 to 2022, helping to plan the meeting and acting as a moderator for a session. I feel strongly that as program directors, our relationships with each other and those around us are important to the success of our field. From the time I was an ACTA Assistant PD, I have greatly enjoyed the camaraderie that the ACTA Program Directors share. I would like to resume my involvement as Councilor and serve SAAAPM for another 2 years.
Candidate for Councilor – CT Anesthesia
Nader Nader, MD, PhD, FCCP, FACC, FAHA, FASA
University at Buffalo, Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences
I am a dedicated professional in the field of Anesthesiology and surgery, proudly serving as a professor at the University at Buffalo. With a career spanning several decades, since 2003, I have had the privilege of shaping the future of anesthesia as the program director for CT anesthesia. My passion for healthcare and education has driven me to excel in both clinical practice and teaching, and I continue to be deeply committed to advancing the field and mentoring the next generation of medical professionals.
During my tenure at the University at Buffalo, my primary role was postdoctoral training and development of resident physicians in anesthesiology scientists, as well as MD-PhD students and graduate students in Pathology and Anatomical Sciences. I have been involved with the training of postdoctoral scientists in research germane to anesthesiology with a particular emphasis on pain mechanisms and the mentoring of graduate students. My Personal research interest lies in examining molecular characteristics of inflammatory pathways in various organs, including the heart. The proposed research aims to investigate the pathways involved in local ischemic signaling, cytokines and protein mediators linked to inflammatory activation of the coagulation system. I am a professor of Anesthesiology and Surgery and have practiced anesthesiology for the past 20 years. My practice actively involves multiple facets of anesthetic and non-anesthetic interventions that lead to immunomodulation of local and systemic inflammation. As a researcher, I have worked heavily with small rodent models of myocardial ischemia and examined the molecular pathways of ischemic inflammation and preconditioning phenomenon.
Candidate for Councilor – CT Anesthesia
Jennie Ngai, MD, FASA
NYU Langone Health
Serving as an educator is a tireless endeavor, and extremely rewarding to see generations of new anesthesiologists taking care of sick patients with ease.
As faculty of NYU Langone Health, I am director of the cardiothoracic anesthesiology fellowship. Each year, I design and coordinate the education of the fellows. In this evolving environment of cardiac anesthesiology, education and research are paramount. Fellow involvement in research projects to further advance our field is part of our educational mission. At our program, fellows are also expected to teach residents by giving lectures and supervising them in a clinical setting. This is in addition to the clinical learning they need to achieve themselves. Fellows begin to learn the many different roles of the academic anesthesiologist. Based on evaluations from each fellow, many have commented that they were very happy with their decision to complete their fellowship with us at NYU.
Being a PD in an area where multiple fellowship programs are in close proximity has helped to organize educational conferences, such as the NYC Fellow Echo Conference. This annual conference is meant to provide a discussion forum for cardiothoracic anesthesiology fellows to present a cardiac case with echocardiography imaging. These conferences provide an opportunity to meet with other cardiac anesthesiology faculty and fellows in the New York City area and to gain an additional perspective in managing the clinical case presented. Additionally, during the Covid pandemic, we started a multi-institutional echo review for the fellows using virtual meetings. As a member of the NYU Langone faculty, I have become involved with various committees and roles regarding education, including anesthesiology residency clinical competency committee and conducting resident applicant interviews. I completed the NYULH Education Mission Leadership Development Program, which developed our capabilities as leaders and assisted our design of programs that would impact the organization.
My additional roles and responsibilities in the cardiothoracic division are administrative in nature. I am director of cardiac and lung transplant anesthesiology and interim director of the cardiothoracic division. It is my responsibility to develop protocols with the surgeons to ensure that we provide excellent care to the patients. This involves coordinating care with various interdisciplinary teams and improving upon existing work flows. As interim director of the division, I maintain working relationships within our division and our department by having open lines of communication, and assisting with conflict resolution.
I hope to be able to contribute more to our field of anesthesiology and be able to provide a means to educate both current and future anesthesiologists. Becoming AASPD Councilor will enable this endeavor.
Candidate for Councilor – CT Anesthesia
Albert Tsai, MD
Stanford University School of Medicine
Albert Tsai is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine and the Program Director for the Adult Cardiothoracic Anesthesia (ACTA) Fellowship at Stanford University. He completed his medical degree and anesthesiology residency at the University of Pennsylvania and ACTA fellowship at Stanford. Dr. Tsai has a passion for medical education, curriculum development, and mentorship and wellbeing in anesthesiology, and has published on these topics. He serves on several subspecialty committees at the SCA and ASA, and has led numerous educational initiatives at the institutional and national levels, including co-chairing SCA University’s Adult Cardiac Anesthesia board review course, ARC. Dr. Tsai has special interests in the role of augmented reality technology in medical education and its potential to expand access to simulation training across residency and fellowships.
Candidate for Councilor – Obstetrics
Jacqueline M. Galvan, MD
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
Throughout my journey, I have had the privilege of serving as an Associate Professor of Anesthesiology at both the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) and UT Southwestern Medical Center (UTSW). These roles have allowed me to shape the growth of future medical professionals while contributing to the academic and clinical environments of two esteemed institutions. Currently, as the Interim Division Chief of Obstetric Anesthesiology at UTSW and a Fellowship Director at the same institution, my dedication to teaching and leadership remains unwavering. My active involvement in prestigious professional organizations, including the American Society of Anesthesiologists and Society for Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology, underscores my commitment to driving the field's knowledge and practices forward. I am particularly honored to serve on the planning subcommittee for the Society of Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology (SOAP) Annual Meeting, where I contribute to content selection, speaker engagement, and workshop organization.
My multifaceted experience, leadership acumen, and dedication to collaboration make me an ideal candidate for the Council Member Position for the Society of Academic Anesthesiologists and Program Directors (SAAPD). I am excited to bring my skills and insights to the role, fostering educational excellence and strengthening cohesion within the field of anesthesiology.
Candidates for Councilor – Pain Medicine
Alexander F. Bautista, MD, MBA, FASA
University of Louisville
Dr. Alexander Bautista is a distinguished Associate Professor of Anesthesiology at the esteemed University of Louisville. Renowned for his exemplary contributions to the field of pain management, Dr. Bautista practices as a dedicated anesthesiologist and pain management physician within the University's esteemed medical institution.
Currently holding pivotal roles, Dr. Bautista serves as the Medical Director of the Pain Clinic, overseeing critical healthcare operations, and assumes the position of Fellowship Program Director, thereby nurturing the next generation of medical practitioners with his profound expertise.
In addition to his impactful clinical responsibilities, Dr. Bautista is an esteemed luminary within the American Society of Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine (ASRA), AAPM (American Academy of Pain Medicine) and American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians (ASIPP).
Furthermore, Dr. Bautista's illustrious career is further highlighted by his prominent contributions as a Board Member for the distinguished Inter Hospital Study Group for Anesthesia Education. His profound insights and dedicated efforts have significantly enriched the realm of anesthesia education.
Dr. Bautista's scholarly contributions extend even further, as he actively contributes as a Question Writer for the American Board of Anesthesiology (ABA) pain examination. His astute assessments play a pivotal role in shaping the certification process for pain medicine practitioners, embodying a commitment to professional excellence.
Notably, Dr. Bautista's comprehensive influence spans academia, where he assumes the esteemed role of Academic Advisory Dean at the University of Louisville. This role signifies his dedication to nurturing the academic pursuits of aspiring medical professionals, fostering a culture of excellence within the institution.
In summation, Dr. Alexander Bautista's illustrious career is a testament to his unwavering dedication to the fields of anesthesiology and pain management. His multifaceted contributions, ranging from clinical leadership and educational mentorship to active roles within esteemed organizations, underscore his profound impact on the medical landscape.
Candidates for Councilor – Pain Medicine
Ahmed Elsahy, MD
Indiana University
Dr. Ahmed I. Elsahy, MD, is a distinguished medical professional based in Indianapolis, Indiana. He is an esteemed clinician and educator with a significant record of accomplishments in the field of anesthesiology and interventional pain management.
Born and raised in Egypt, Dr. Elsahy obtained his Doctor of Medicine degree from Ain Shams University in Cairo, Egypt. He also holds a Master’s degree in Plastic and general surgery from the same university. He completed his Anesthesiology Residency and Pain Management Fellowship at Indiana University, Indianapolis, Indiana.
Dr. Elsahy has held numerous leadership roles throughout his career, including Director of Interventional Pain Management at VA Medical Center, Indianapolis, Indiana, and Associate Director of Advanced Pain Therapy at Indiana University Hospital. He is currently the Director of the Multidisciplinary Fellowship Program at Indiana University.
A certified professional by The American Board of Anesthesiology in Anesthesiology and Pain Management, Dr. Elsahy is also a member of several professional societies, including the American Society of Anesthesiologists, American Society of Regional Anesthesia & Pain Medicine, and The American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians.
Dr. Elsahy is a frequent lecturer and speaker at various national and international conferences, sharing his expertise on recent advances in pain management and regional anesthesia. He has also contributed to the medical literature, publishing research papers on neurolytic transversus abdominis plane block and MILD procedure effectiveness in the VA population.
Beyond his professional achievements, Dr. Elsahy is a dedicated family man, happily married with three children. He is a U.S. citizen and can be reached via email at [email protected] or on his phone at (317) 652-9330. His office is located at 550 N University Blvd, Indianapolis, IN 46236.
Candidates for Councilor – Pain Medicine
Kiran V. Patel, MD
Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra- Northwell
Kiran V. Patel MD is an Interventional Pain Management physician board certified in Pain Medicine and Anesthesiology. Dr. Patel established the ACGME Pain Medicine Fellowship program at the Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra Northwell in 2018. Since that time, Dr. Patel has served as the Pain Medicine Program Director. Dr. Patel has been a Director for the Association of Pain Program Directors since 2020. Dr. Patel has been active in the education of Pain Medicine fellows for the past 10 years, through her participation as faculty and then Director of the NANS Neuromodulation Cadaver Lab for Fellows. Dr. Patel is currently the Director of the NANS Certificate in SCS endeavor, a means to equalize training in neuromodulation.
Dr. Patel is the Director of Pain Medicine at Lenox Hill Hospital and oversees the Pain Medicine/ Neuromodulation at Lenox Hill Hospital. In this position, Dr. Patel also oversees the Inpatient Pain Medicine service. Dr. Patel is an assistant clinical professor at the Hofstra-Northwell School of Medicine. She precepts the Pain Medicine rotation for Hofstra Anesthesiology residents and medical students.
Dr. Patel earned her medical degree from Rutgers University and went on to complete an internship in Internal Medicine at Yale University. She completed her Anesthesiology residency and Interventional Pain Medicine Fellowship at Columbia University. She also studied medical acupuncture at Harvard University. Dr. Patel has practiced medicine in India and Africa and has organized efforts to address the undertreatment of pain medicine and anesthesia in these regions.
Dr. Patel is currently Treasurer for the North American Neuromodulation Society’s Board of Directors and has been on the Board of Directors for the past 6 years. Dr. Patel has co-chaired the NANS Cadaver workshop for the past several years.
Dr. Patel is an advocate for women in neuromodulation and pain medicine. She is a founding member of Women In Neuromodulation (WIN) as well as Women Innovators in Pain Medicine (WIPM). Dr. Patel is currently Vice President of WIPM.
Dr. Patel trains physicians in pain procedures and neuromodulation nationally and internationally. Her passion for fellow and resident education is reflected by her extensive track record.
Dr. Patel conducts original clinical research. Her work has been published in Neuromodulation and Pain Physician. Her career is dedicated to improving Pain Medicine and Neuromodulation physician training, patient outcomes, and access to care.
Candidate for Councilor – Pediatrics
Michael Hernandez, MD
Boston Children's Hospital
Dr. Hernandez is originally from Michigan. He completed undergraduate and medical school studies at the University of Michigan. He pursued residency training at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and then fellowship in pediatric anesthesiology at Boston Children’s Hospital. He subsequently returned to the Midwest as a faculty member within the University of Chicago Department of Anesthesia and Critical Care. He eventually assumed the role of Program Director for the core residency program for four years, prior to returning to Boston Children’s Hospital as a faculty member and the fellowship program director in 2015. He has enjoyed interacting with other fellowship program directors, and would like to collaborate with fellowship program directors from the other anesthesiology subspecialty fellowship programs. He provides the following statement regarding his pursuit of the AASPD Councilor position vacancy:
I have had the honor (perhaps foolishly) of being both a core residency program director at University of Chicago, and now a pediatric anesthesia fellowship program director at Boston Children’s Hospital. I am familiar with all of the trials and tribulations we face as program directors in each of our programs. I had a great experience as a Member-at-Large on the board of the Pediatric Anesthesia Program Directors Association. It is amazing how many common issues and challenges we have as pediatric anesthesia fellowship program directors. I know that those similarities and challenges are not unique to pediatric anesthesiology. In fact, some of them were familiar to me as a core residency program director as well. I would like to explore some of our shared challenges and experiences as a Councilor on the AASPD Board. I believe my prior experience may be helpful in serving the larger AASPD membership as a member of the Council. There is so much that we can do for each other, our trainees, and our specialty as a whole.
Candidate for Councilor – Regional Anesthesia
Brian F. S. Allen, MD, FASA
Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Brian Allen is an Associate Professor and fellowship-trained RAAPM physician and has been the RAAPM fellowship director at Vanderbilt University Medical Center since 2016.
He is an active participant in numerous national meetings and workshops, with a focus on regional anesthesia, opioid stewardship, practice management, and enhanced recovery pathway implementation. He has been active with the ABA as a MOCA Minute question author, editor, and committee member.
In addition to clinical and educational endeavors, he has published and explored topics such as the impact of opioid education on prescribing practices, outcomes of spinal vs. general anesthesia, and the nuanced effects of elements within enhanced recovery pathways.
If elected to this position, Dr. Allen would serve with passion, dedication, and integrity to advance education and faculty development in the field of anesthesiology and perioperative medicine.
