Mary Aitken, MD, MPH Arkansas Children's Hospital Little Rock, Arkansas Dr.
Mary Aitken is a general pediatrician practicing at Arkansas Children’s Hospital (ACH) who is also a researcher. She is a Professor of Pediatrics University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), Section Chief of the Center for Applied Research and Evaluation in the Department of Pediatrics at UAMS, and the Medical Director of the ACH Injury Prevention Center. Dr. AItken participates in resident and student education in the outpatient and inpatient setting. She is also involved in education of public health students as part of the Maternal and Child Health Division of the UAMS College of Public Health. Dr. Aitken serves on the Executive Committee for the Section on Injury, Poison, and Violence Prevention for the American Academy of Pediatrics. Her research interests include prevention of motor vehicle and all-terrain vehicle injury, as well as how to improve the quality of life of children after injury, particularly traumatic brain injury. She has received funding for her projects from the Emergency Medical Services for Children Program of MCHB and other agencies. She was the 2000 recipient of the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine’s Sidney and Elizabeth Licht Award for Excellence in Scientific Writing. She also received a Robert Wood Johnson Generalist Physician Scholar award to advance her research program in evaluating health-related quality of life for injured children.
Dr. Aitken attended the University of North Carolina School of Medicine and completed a pediatrics residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. She also received a Master’s in Public Health degree with a concentration in epidemiology during a General Academic Pediatrics fellowship at the University of Washington.
Holly Bair, RN, MSN, NP Trauma Program Manager William Beaumont Hospital Royal Oak, Michigan
Holly Bair is the Trauma Program Manager at William Beaumont Medical Center in Royal Oak, Michigan. She is a licensed Nurse Practitioner in the state of Michigan and received her Masters Degree from Madonna University in 2001. In 1995 Holly came to Beaumont Hospital to create a Level I Trauma Center. Beaumont Hospital - Royal Oak has successfully re-verified six times under her direction. Along with her duties on the Trauma Service she has also accepted responsibility as the Director of the Beaumont Access Center. Holly has multiple publications, including papers reflecting her work on a rapid reversal protocol for anticoagulated patients with traumatic head bleeds. She has lectured at the state, regional, and national level on a range of trauma related subjects. She belongs to many profession organizations and is currently the Secretary of the Michigan Emergency Nurses Association.
Cynthia Blank-Reid has been a nurse for over 25 years and is currently a Trauma Clinical Nurse Specialist at Temple University Hospital in Philadlephia. She received her undergraduate nursing degree from Villaniva Univeristy and Master's Degree in Burn, Emergency and Trauma Nursing with a minor in neurosurgery from Widener University. She spent over 16 years at The Hospita l of the Medical College of Pennsylvani (MCP) working in general surgery, neurosurgery, and the emergency department. She has worn many hats at their award-winning Level I trauma center, including trauma program coordinator and education and outreach coordinator. When MCP closed, Cindy moved to Temple University Hospital in Philadlephia, where she has been for the past 5 years. She has lectured locally and nationally on a multitiude of nursing topics, and has published extensiviely. She is active in a variety of nursing organizations, including the Emergnecy Nurses Association (ENA), the American Association of Critical Care Nurses (AACN), Sigma Theta Tau (STT), the American Association of Neuroscience Nurses (AANN), and the Society of Trauma Nurses (STN). She has served as national president of AANN and is currently the chair of the STN Educational Committee.
Ernest J. Block, MD, MBA, EMT-P, FACS, FCCM Director, Acute Care Surgery Holmes Regional Medical Center Melbourne, Florida
Dr. Ernest Block is the Director of Acute Care Surgery at Holmes Regional Medical Center in Melbourne, Florida. He was raised in Montreal, Canada and received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Cornell University with a dual major in History of Art and Biochemistry. After receiving his MD degree at the University of Miami, Dr. Block completed a General Surgery residency at Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia and then additional training in Trauma and Critical Care at Jackson Memorial in Miami. He is an active clinician as well as medical director, and in the recent past has served as the Trauma Director of the Level I Trauma Center at the Orlando Regional Medical Center in Orlando, Florida. He holds office in a number of academic surgical associations including the Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma (Past-President), the American College of Surgeons, the Florida Committee on Trauma (Vice-Chairman), and the Florida Chapter of the American College of Surgeons (President Elect). In 2002, after practicing for ten years as surgeon, Dr. Block attended night school to become an EMT so as to better relate to the prehospital team that brings the trauma center its patients; he regularly participates in “ride along” time with EMS and Fire-Rescue. He lives in Winter Park, Florida with his wife Susan and three children. Dr. Block attended the University of Tennessee Physician Executive MBA program to improve leadership skills, quality improvement tools and financial abilities.
Dr. Melanie Brewer is the Director of Nursing Research at Scottsdale Healthcare and is a Clinical Associate Professor in the College of Nursing at Arizona State University. Her research interests include healthcare informatics, evidence-based practice, and the psychosocial and physiological outcomes of health care. She received her BSN from the University of New Mexico and her MSN from Arizona State University in Community Health Nursing, where she also completed the Family Nurse Practitioner program. She went on to complete her Doctor of Nursing Science at Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing in Baltimore, Maryland in 2004.
Dr. Brewer has been the recipient of several awards, including the Health Care Professional of the Year award from the West Texas Parkinsonism Society in 1991, and the Achievement Reward for College Scientists Foundation Scholar in 1997-98. In 2006, while on staff at Phoenix Children’s Hospital as the Director of Clinical Outcomes and Nursing Research, Dr. Brewer received their Excellence in Leadership and Mentorship/ Nursing Excellence Award. She has had a diverse career as a nurse manager, research nurse clinician, neurology clinical coordinator, nurse practitioner, research project coordinator, consultant, associate professor, and nursing research director.
Dr. Brewer is active in many professional organizations and is a current board member of Sigma Theta Tau – Beta Upsilon Chapter. She is a member and data reviewer for the Arizona Diabetes Collaborative/ Partners in Quality, and a faculty consultant for the Student Nurses Association of Arizona. She is widely published and has mentored many students working on their research and evidence-based practice projects. She frequently lectures on the evaluation of outcomes and the implementation of evidence-based practice.
Jonathan B. Cohen, MD, FCCP Florida Gulf-to-Bay Anesthesiology Critical Care Medicine Tampa General Hospital and The University of South Florida Tampa, Florida
Dr. Jonathan Cohen is a member of Florida Gulf-to-Bay Anesthesiology and works both in anesthesiology and critical care at Tampa General Hospital/ The University of South Florida. His commitment is 80% critical care, performing critical care duties with emphasis on post-operative care, including burn, trauma, neurosurgical, obstetric, abdominal transplant, and orthopedic patients. He is a board certified anesthesiologist with special qualifications in critical care. Dr. Cohen trained at the University of South Florida College of Medicine and completed his fellowship in critical care medicine there as well. He was the recipient of the Outstanding Anesthesiology Independent Study Project and the Annual Award for Excellence in Forensic Pathology, both in 2002. His poster presentation, “Organ Donation in the Burn Unit,” won a Best in Category (Critical Care) award at the American Burn Association 2009 Annual Meeting. He has published several papers, posters, and book chapters, including recent book chapters on the pathophysiology of shock in trauma and on clinical decision-making.
Susan A. Cox, RN, MS, CEN, PHN STN President Director of Trauma and Volunteer Services Rady Children’s Hospital and Health Center San Diego, California
Sue Cox is the current president of the Society of Trauma Nurses (STN). She is the Director of Rady Children’s Hospital Regional Pediatric Trauma Center in San Diego, and also directs the department of Volunteer Services there. Sue is the immediate past Chair of the San Diego County Trauma Program Managers and the first nursing co-chair of the San Diego County Medical Audit Committee. She is also the Treasurer of the Trauma Research and Education Foundation of San Diego. Sue received her BSN from San Diego University with a minor in Business Administration, and her MS from San Diego State University in Nursing Administration. She has been an active clinician, administrator, and educator for the past 30 years, focusing exclusively on pediatric issues with primary interests in critical care, trauma care, emergency care, disaster planning, and injury prevention. Sue is a prolific educator locally, nationally and internationally. Her work has been published in the Journal of Trauma Nursing, Nursing Clinics of North America, and in the Emergency Nurses’ Association’s Trauma Nurse Core Curriculum. She has been recognized for her advocacy with children’s issues by the San Diego Office of Education, the San Diego Rotary Club, the YWCA, and Rady Children’s Hospital.
Dr. Laura Criddle is a clinical nurse at Oregon Health & Science University, Portland Oregon and a clinical nurse specialist at the Laurelwood Group, Scappoose Oregon. She attended nursing school in a quiet suburban community and went from there to a huge medical center in Harlem, where a fascination with the critically ill and injured patient began. This led her to practice in trauma centers from coast-to-coast, and to a career as a clinical nurse specialist in emergency and trauma care. She has held many leadership positions in nursing, including the editorial board of the Journal of Emergency Nursing and a member of the Certified Emergency Nurse (CEN) exam construction and review committee. She has also served as past president of the Oregon Emergency Nurses Association and is the 2010 Chair of the Academy of Emergency Nursing. Dr. Criddle earned her masters degree from the University of California, San Francisco in 1990 and returned to graduate studies to complete a PhD in nursing from Oregon Health & Science University in Portland in 2008. Her areas of primary interest include emergency, trauma, neuroscience, transport, geriatric injury, and critical care. She brings her wide experience in settings from critical care float pool to flight nurse, along with a tremendous breadth of knowledge, to any talk she gives. She has published extensively, including over 60 professional manuscripts, and is the co-editor of the 6th edition of Sheehy’s Manual of Emergency Care.
Diana Fendya, MSN, RN Pediatric Trauma & Acute Care Nurse Specialist EMS Services for Children Children’s National Medical Center Washington, DC
Diana Fendya is an advanced practice pediatric Nurse and Trauma/Acute Care Specialist. She has served as the manager of a state designated Level I pediatric trauma program in St. Louis for 14 years, where she also managed and provided leadership for four state EMSC grants. She presently works as the Trauma/Acute Care Specialist for the Emergency Medical Services for Children (EMSC) National Resource Center (NRC), based at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, DC. The NRC provides technical assistance to state grantees as they strive to improve the delivery of emergency care of children and to the Federal Program based at the Health Resources Services Administration. Diana earned both her BSN and MSN (Nursing of Children and Families) from St. Louis University School of Nursing. She has spoken at many local and national meetings on pediatric trauma care and injury prevention topics. She has also authored numerous manuscripts on pediatric trauma and emergency care in peer-reviewed literature. Diana co-authored the chapter “Preparing Nurses to Plan and Care for Children During Disaster Situations,” in the textbook, Preparing Nurses for Disasters Management (Langan JC and Dotti C. James DC, Editors, 2005).
Mary Kate FitzPatrick, RN, MSN, CRNP-BC Nursing Clinical Director, Quality, Safety, and Unit Based Clinical Leadership Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Kate FitzPatrick is a past President of the Society of Trauma Nurses (2004) and served on the STN board for 6 years. She continues to serve on the editorial review board for the Journal of Trauma Nursing. She also served three terms on the Board of the Pennsylvania Trauma Systems Foundation. She is currently on the Board of Trustees (Secretary) for the Eastern Association for the Surgery Of Trauma. She is member of the Pennsylvania State Nurses Association.
Kate has over 23 years of nursing experience involving expertise in the areas of nursing operations, quality/safety, patient flow, rapid response, trauma system development, trauma center development/accreditation and trauma performance improvement. Her clinical background includes pre-hospital, emergency/trauma, and surgical nursing. In addition, she served as the State Trauma System Coordinator for the Division of Public Health in Delaware, which included responsibility for chairing the statewide trauma system development initiative. Kate has held hospital-based leadership positions as the Trauma Performance Improvement Coordinator, Trauma Program Manager, and Trauma Clinical Programs Administrator at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, a regional resource Level I Trauma Center. Currently she is Nursing Clinical Director with responsibility for Quality, Safety, and the Unit Based Clinical Leadership model at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.
Kate has a Bachelors Degree of Science from the University of Delaware and a Masters Degree in Trauma/Emergency Nursing from Widener University in Chester, Pennsylvania. In 2004 she completed the post-Master’s Acute Care Nurse Practitioner program at the University of Pennsylvania. Kate holds a certificate in Leadership and Development from the University of Delaware School of Business Continuing Education program. She also completed a Patient Safety Leadership fellowship sponsored by the Wharton School of Business/Penn Department of Surgery in May 2004. In 2008 Kate completed an executive education program for Medical Leaders at the Wharton School.
Alice Gervasini, PhD, RN Nurse Director, Trauma and Emergency Surgery Program Instructor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School Massachusetts General Hospital Boston, Massachusetts
Dr. Alice Gervasini is the Director of Trauma and Emergency Surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital and a surgery instructor at Harvard Medical School. She received her diploma in nursing from the New England Deaconess Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts and her BSN from the American University in Washington, DC. She continued her education with a Masters of Science at the University of Maryland at Baltimore in Trauma/Critical Care Nursing and then received a PhD in Nursing from the Boston College School of Nursing in Boston, Massachusetts. She is an active manager, educator, and researcher, and is a frequent lecturer on a variety of trauma and critical care topics, including family presence during resuscitation, care of the obese trauma patient, vascular trauma, quality indicators for trauma and critical care, pre-hospital trauma management, and trauma systems development. Dr. Gervasini has been the principal and co-investigator on many funded research projects, and has published extensively, including co-authoring a chapter in the Handbook of Clinical Trauma Care: The First Hour (4th Edition, 2006, Mosby-Elsevier). She is also a member of the Editorial Review Board of the Journal of Trauma Nursing.
Mike James Alabama State Child Passenger Safety Coordinator Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs Huntsville, Alabama
Mike James is the coordinator and lead instructor for child passenger safety (CPS) for the State of Alabama. He is also a board member of the National Child Passenger Safety Board. Mike has worked on CPS issues since 1997, and has been certified since 1998. He has taught classes in Nebraska, Mississippi, Florida, Tennessee, Louisiana, New York, Vermont, Alabama and Georgia. In his role as Alabama’s State CPS Coordinator, Mike is responsible for the coordination of efforts to get communities trained in CPS, and has personally been involved in the education of thousands of parents on the proper use of their car seats. He has also developed a curriculum for the safe transportation of children with special needs that is designed specifically for parents, occupational therapists, and physical therapists. In addition, he has assisted vehicle manufacturers in the development of programs to safely transport children in their vehicles, help them ensure that their vehicles are child restraint friendly, correct restraint-to-vehicle incompatibilities, and familiarize their vehicle dealerships with child passenger safety. Mike is often consulted on court cases where proper restraint use could have prevented or minimized the injury to the child.
Mike has trained CPS technicians using the CPS renewal curriculum, the NHTSA school bus curriculum, and the standardized CPS curriculum. He is one of the original reviewers of the LATCH/tether manual (SAFE Ride News publications), the standardized curriculum and has been a speaker at many of the National CPS conferences and SAFE Kids Worldwide conferences since 1998.
Donald Jenkins, MD, FACS President, Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma (EAST) Senior Associate Consultant Mayo Clinic Rochester, Minnesota
Dr. Donald Jenkins is the current president of the Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma (EAST). In 2008, he retired from the U.S. Air Force after having served as the Trauma Medical Director at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas. For over a decade, Dr. Jenkins was responsible for all trauma medical care and administration at Wilford Hall USAF Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, the USAF’s only American College of Surgeons Verified Level 1 Trauma Center. He was also the Flight Commander and Chairman of General Surgery for 59 MDW (59th Medical Wing – Wilford Hall).
Currently, Dr. Jenkins is a Senior Associate Consultant for the Division of Trauma of Critical Care and Surgery for the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, as well as the Trauma Medical Director and Associate Professor of Surgery in the College of Medicine there. He is also an Assistant Professor of Surgery for the Uniformed Services University in Bethesda, Maryland. He is a nationally recognized speaker and peer-reviewed author, and has published multiple papers on topics that include pulmonary embolism prevention, organ donation and brain death, damage control in an austere environment, resuscitation end-points and tissue oxygenation, substance abuse and withdrawal in the ICU, trauma system development in a theater of war, burn resuscitation guidelines.
Dr. Jenkins received his BS in 1984 at the University of Scranton, Pennsylvania with a major in Biochemistry. He earned his MD in 1988 at the Uniformed Services University in Bethesda, Maryland, and performed his General Surgery Residency at Wilford Hall and Lackland AFB in 1988 and again from 1991-1996. He was a Trauma/Critical Care Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania in 1998. In 1999, Dr. Jenkins received the Diploma Medical Care of Catastrophes from the Society of Apothecaries of London.
Amy Koestner, MSN, RN Trauma Program Manager Borgess Medical Center Kalamazoo, Michigan
Amy Koestner is the Trauma Program Manager at Borgess Medical Center, a level 1 Trauma Center in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Amy has a 30-year nursing career, with experience spanning the bedside in pediatric ICU, regional pediatric education, flight nursing, adult ICU bedside care, and the past 15 years in the role of trauma program manager. She has led multiple trauma centers through five ACS verification visits. Amy earned her BSN from Nazareth College, and her MSN from Wayne State University.
Amy has been active in the Society of Trauma Nurses (STN) for over 10 years, serving in a variety of leadership roles, including past president in 2008. Her involvement in STN has included participation as an original author/ faculty member for the Optimal Trauma Center Organization & Management Course, as one of the key authors of the Senior Lifestyle & Injury Prevention (SLIP) course, as national & international faculty for the Advanced Trauma Care for Nurses (ATCN) course, and most recently as the appointed STN chair liaison to the Committee on Trauma. Amy remains active as faculty for ATCN, the Trauma Nurse Core Course (TNCC), the Emergency Nursing Pediatric Course (ENPC), and speaks on trauma topics on a state and national level.
Amy has been involved in trauma system development in Michigan through her leadership role in the Michigan Trauma Coalition and Regional Trauma Advisory Committee in Southwest Michigan.
Karen Macauley, RN, MEd Pediatric Trauma Program Director All Children's Hospital St Petersburg, Florida
Karen Macauley has worked with trauma patients for the last 20 years, and is currently the trauma program manager at a free-standing children’s hospital, the All-Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg, Florida. She received both her BSN and Masters in Health Education from Pennsylvania State University. Karen is currently enrolled in a Doctor of Health Administration program through the University of Phoenix. She is an active member of the Society of Trauma Nurses (STN) as a current STN board member and EAST Committee member. She has also been active in the Trauma Nurse Council of the American Trauma Society (ATS). Karen currently serves on the Florida Injury Prevention Advisory Council and the Florida Trauma Startegic Plan Advisory Council, and she is also a Washignton State trauma site surveyor.
Karen is active in injury prevention as a THINK FIRST presenter and as a certified Child Passenger Safety (CPS) technician and Instructor. She has coordinated multiple injury prevention grants and clinical research projects. Karen has lectured extensively on a variety of trauma topics, including burn care, child abuse, alcoholism and trauma, spinal cord injury, and as faculty for the ATS’ Trauma Coordinator’s Course.
Pat Manion, RN, MS, CCRN, CEN Trauma Program Manager Genesys Regional Medical Center Grand Blanc, Michigan
Pat Manion has over 13 years of experience in trauma program management, most recently as the trauma program director at Genesys Regional Medical Center in Grand Blanc, Michigan. She has worked in critical care and trauma education, orthopedic case management, cardiac surgery program development, direct patient care in critical care and trauma, and trauma program development. Pat has been very active in the Society of Trauma Nurses (STN) for the past 10 years, and is currently the Secretary on the STN Board of Directors. She also served as the STN Conference Chairperson from 2006 through 2009. She is very active in the Emergency Nurses Association, serving as State officer and State Faculty for TNCC. Pat has spoken extensively in the State of Michigan and nationally on critical care and trauma topics. She has many publications to her name, and has been a subject matter reviewer/ editor for Principles of Basic Trauma Nursing (2nd Edition, 2006, Western Schools, Inc.) and the Trauma Nursing Core Curriculum (TNCC) textbook (6th Edition revision, 2007). Her areas of particular expertise are geriatric trauma, complications of trauma, trauma case studies, and injury prevention for the elderly population. She has mentored many other prospective trauma centers as they worked toward successful ACS trauma center verification.
Kathleen D. Martin, MSN, RN, CCRNEN Trauma Program Nurse Director Landstuhl Regional Medical Center US Army Military Treatment Facility Landstuhl, Germany
Kathleen Martin has over 30 years of experience in trauma care delivery. She is currently the Trauma Program Nurse Director at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. Her career has spanned diverse nursing positions including staff RN in the trauma ICU, clinical nurse specialist, trauma program manager, consultant, trauma nurse site surveyor, and entrepreneur in her own consulting company. She has authored many research papers and book chapters, and her research interests include hypothermia in trauma, organ donation, trauma performance improvement (PI), the use of nurse practitioners in trauma care, and trauma systems. She is an active educator, teaching ATCN and the Trauma Outcomes and Performance Improvement Course (TOPIC), and has had numerous invited speaking engagements. She was the recipient of the Society of Trauma Nurses’ (STN’s) 2009 Distinguished Lectureship Award
Kathleen has served on the STN board of directors in various positions for 16 years and is a past president of STN. Her involvement with the STN has been as an original author/ faculty of the TOPIC and TOPIC-M course, Editor in Chief of the Journal of Trauma Nursing, international faculty for the ATCN Course, and as a member of the collaborative STN and American College of Surgeons (ACS) PI committee charged to develop a verification readiness course. She is a current member of the STN board of directors as the TOPIC Committee Chair.
Kimberly Meyer, MSN, ACNP-BC, CNRN Neuroscience Clinician Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center Walter Reed Army Medical Center Washington, DC
Kim Meyer is a Neuroscience Clinician and traumatic brain injury (TBI) specialist with the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center, Washington DC. She has over fifteen years of experience with traumatic brain injury management. After earning her BSN from the University of Louisville, she began her career as a staff nurse in a trauma step-down unit, then on to the surgical ICU. Kim subsequently went on to complete her MSN and Acute Care Nurse Practitioner training in 2001 from the University of Kentucky. KIm has worked as a clinical research coordinator and as a neurosurgery nurse practitioner at the University of Louisville, Department of Neurological Surgery. She has served as adjunct faculty at Midway College, where she taught neurotrauma and general neurology topics. Kim now works at the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center, which is the operational TBI component of the Defense Center of Excellence. She has been an active member of many nursing organizations, and is currently on the Board of Directors of the American Board of Neuroscience Nurses. KIm lectures widely and has co-authored many peer-reviewed papers on topics including TBI, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following TBI, spinal cord injury, the promotion of cerebral perfusion, and the management of cerebral edema. Her work has been recognized with certificates of appreciation from the Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates, the Brain Injury Association of Kentucky, and the Health & Human Services Administration Organ Donation Breakthrough Collaborative.
Judy Mikhail, RN, MSN, MBA Trauma Administrator Hurley Medical Center Flint, Michigan
Judy Mikhail has over 30 years of progressive trauma nursing experience, most recently as the administrator for Trauma, Bariatrics, and Neuroservices at Hurley Medical Center, a Level-1 Trauma in Flint, Michigan. She began her nursing career in the Burn Unit at Hurley, and progressed from surgical ICU staff nurse to clinical nurse specialist and ultimately a trauma program manager and trauma administrator. Judy earned her diploma in nursing from Hurley Medical Center School of Nursing, her BSN from the University of Michigan, and MSN from the University of Texas. In 2003, she completed work on her MBA from Colorado State University. Judy is currently a full-time doctoral nursing student at the Medical University of South Carolina. She has been active in many professional organizations, including the Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma (EAST), the American Burn Association (ABA), the American Organization of Nurse Executives (AONE), the Emergency Nurses Association (ENA), the American Association of Critical Care Nurses (AACN), and the Society of Trauma Nurses (STN)
Judy is a nationally recognized speaker in trauma care and an active educator and course director for PreHospital Trauma Life Support (PHTLS), Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS), Advanced Trauma Care for Nurses (ATCN), the Trauma Nurse Core Course (TNCC), the Course in Advanced Trauma Nursing (CATN), Fundamental Critical Care Support (FCCS), and Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS). She serves as an adjunct instructor for the University of Michigan-Flint, School of Nursing. Judy has authored over 18 publications in trauma, including the evaluation and treatment of abdominal trauma, the use of midlevel providers in trauma centers, injury severity scoring, resuscitation endpoints in trauma, and care of the burn patient. She has won three local research awards. She has served as President and Treasurer of the board of directors of STN. Judy has been involved in trauma system development in Michigan, including serving as President of the Michigan Trauma Coalition, and she currently serves on the State of Michigan Trauma Advisory Committee.
Frank “Tres” Mitchell, MD, FACS Chairperson - Verification Review Committee of the American College of Surgeons, Committee on Trauma Medical Director Trauma and Surgical Critical Care St. John Health System Tulsa, Oklahoma
Dr. Frank “Tres” Mitchell has a long history in the trauma community and is highly visible on the national stage. He has been a member and officer of the National ATLS Committee, a member of the Verification Review Committee of the ACS Committee on Trauma, Region Chief for the Committee on Trauma, and Chairman of the Oklahoma State Committee on Trauma. Dr. Mitchell has been a Verification Review Committee Site Reviewer since 1999 and is the Current Chair of the Committee on Trauma Verification Review Committee. Dr. Mitchell was a site surveyor for the first Trauma Verification Review Committee Site Visit outside the U.S. at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, Germany. In his role as Chair of the Verification Review Committee, Dr. Mitchell has fostered a collaborative relationship with the Society of Trauma Nurses (STN), which has included support for the new “OPTIMAL” course as well as lecturing at our annual conference for the past three years.
He is the Medical Director, Trauma and Surgical Critical Care at St. John Medical Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He has been a general surgeon, trauma surgeon, and director of both trauma and critical care in both Oklahoma and Kansas. Dr. Mitchell graduated with a BA from the University of Missouri, earned his MD from Tulane in New Orleans. He completed his General Surgery Residency at Parkland Memorial in Dallas. He is board certified in General Surgery and in Surgical Critical Care. Dr. Mitchell is a frequent speaker at regional and national conferences. He was also the Course Director for the annual Adult and Pediatric Trauma Symposium for multiple years.
Dr. Mitchell is active in many professional organizations, including the American Society for Bariatric Surgery, the Parkland Surgical Society, the Tulane Surgical Society, and the American Association for Surgery of Trauma, the Society of Critical Care Medicine, Western Trauma Association, and the Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics.
Joe Perno, MD Assistant Medical Director Emergency Center All Children's Hospital St Petersburg, Florida
Dr. Perno is a Pediatric Emergency Medicine attending and Assistant Medical Director at the All Children’s Hospital Emergency Center in St. Petersburg, Florida. He is a frequent lecturer on topics related to childhood injury, including pediatric head injury, poisoning, intentional drug ingestion in adolescents, shaken baby syndrome, pediatric sports injuries, injuries from lightning strike, and mass casualty. Dr. Perno has authored several papers, and his research interests include parental satisfaction and expectations in the Emergency Department, histamine reactions in children receiving radiographic contrast agents, and delayed diagnosis of pediatric injuries. He received his medical degree from St. George’s University School of Medicine, and did his pediatric residency at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Dr. Perno went on to complete a pediatric emergency medicine fellowship at the Primary Children’s Medical Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. He is board certified in both pediatrics and pediatric emergency medicine. Dr. Perno was the recipient of two Resident Teaching Awards while at the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital.
Pam Pieper, PhD, ARNP, PNP-BC Clinial Associate Professor College of Nursing University of Florida Jacksonville, Florida
Dr. Pam Pieper has worked as an advanced practice nurse with the Division of Pediatric Surgery, University of Florida Jacksonville campus since 1984. From 1990-2003, she was the Trauma Nurse Coordinator at the Level I Trauma Center there, first for the pediatric trauma program and, subsequently for the entire program. She is a frequent speaker and has been responsible for numerous teaching programs involving nursing care of both surgical neonates and critically injured children. She is recognized as a national leader in quality monitoring and outcomes assessment of pediatric trauma care.
Dr. Pieper received her BA in Biology from Franklin and Marshall College, her BSN from Cornell University - New York Hospital School of Nursing, and her MSN from the University of Alabama in Birmingham, as a pediatric clinical nurse specialist with a focus on infants. She went on to complete her pediatric nurse practitioner training at the University of Florida in 1991 and her PhD from Barry University in 2009.
Since 2006, Dr. Pieper has been a consultant to the Florida Department of Health Office of Trauma for pediatric trauma nursing and the state trauma registry. She has been a member of the Florida Emergency Medical Services for Children Advisory Committee since her appointment in 2007. Her dissertation topic was on health-related quality of life in children who sustained a mild traumatic brain injury, at 1-month post-injury, from the perspectives of the children and their proxies. The data she will be presenting at the Society of Trauma Nurses (STN) meeting is from an IRB-approved continuation of that study.
Susan Rzucidlo, MSN, RN Pediatric Trauma Program Manager Penn State Hershey Hershey, Pennsylvania
For the past 15 years, Susan Rzucidlo has been the pediatric trauma and injury prevention program manager at the level 1 pediatric trauma program at Penn State Hershey Children’s Hospital, Milton S. Hershey Medical Center. She is responsible for the administrative and clinical oversight for trauma designation. Susan is the coordinator of Safe Kids Dauphin County and manages the staff and resources for the campus injury prevention initiatives . She is a certified child passenger safety instructor, STN pediatric committee member and Think First chapter coordinator.
Susan received a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of Pittsburgh. She completed a Master’s of Science in Nursing from Duquesne University in Education and Trauma / Critical Care nursing. She has many years of experience both as a staff nurse in the pediatric ICU and in staff education as a staff development instructor, education coordinator, and program manager in training and development. She has co-authored multiple papers and her research interests include parental knowledge about infant car seats, child abuse, pediatric blunt pancreatic injury, traumatic stress symptoms, pediatric trauma in the Amish community, and preventing head injuries in children. She is a frequent speaker at local, regional, and national meetings.
Kathryn Schroeter, PhD, RN, CNOR Editor, Journal of Trauma Nursing Assistant Professor of Nursing Marquette University College of Nursing Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Kathryn Schroeter is Editor of the Journal of Trauma Nursing (JTN). She is an Assistant Professor in the College of Nursing at Marquette University where she currently teaches research methods at the graduate and undergraduate levels. She holds the position of adjunct Assistant Professor of Bioethics at the Medical College of Wisconsin. She serves as a Magnet Accreditation Appraiser for the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), and continues to work as an Education Coordinator at Froedtert Hospital – a Level-I trauma center – also in Milwaukee.
Kathryn received her BSN degree from Alverno College in Milwaukee, and her MA in Bioethics from the Medical College of Wisconsin. She received her MS degree from the school of Education at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee (UWM) and her PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She has many years of experience in the operating room/perioperative nursing as an educator, manager, consultant, and editor.
Kathryn has written and presented extensively on bioethics topics. Her membership in professional organizations include: the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses (AORN), the American Nurses' Association (ANA), the American Society for Bioethics and the Humanities (ASBH) and the Eta Nu chapter of Sigma Theta Tau. Kathryn serves on the board of the Wisconsin Nurses’ Association (WNA), the Competency and Credentialing Institute (CCI) where she has been active on the CCI Research Committee as both a member and chairperson. She is a member of the American Board of Nursing Specialties (ABNS) Research Committee. She has also chaired the AORN national research committee.
Cristy Thomas, DNP, FNP-BC Trauma Nurse Practitioner University of Nevada School of Medicine Las Vegas, Nevada
Dr. Cristy Thomas is a Trauma Nurse Practitioner in the Department of Surgery at the University of Nevada School of Medicine, where she manages critically injured trauma patients in Nevada’s only Level-I trauma center. She began her career in Traverse City, Michigan, where she completed her Associates Degree in Nursing in 1997 and worked in the ICU at Munson Medical Center. She went on to complete a BSN from the University of Michigan in 2000, and an MSN from the University of Nevada-Las Vegas as a Family Nurse Practitioner in 2003. She has worked as an NP in a variety of settings including family nurse practitioner in dermatology and most recently in trauma critical care. She also has an MBA from Baker College in Flint, Michigan. In 2009, she completed her Doctor of Nursing Practice from Case Western Reserve University.
She has an active teaching role with residents, medical students, nurses, and advanced practice nursing students. She participates in several ongoing research projects. Her research interests include traumatic brain injury, burn care, and the emerging role of the advance practice nurse in the academic acute care trauma setting.
Sydney J. Vail, MD, FACS Medical Director for Trauma Maricopa Medical Center Phoenix, Arizona
Dr. Sydney Vail the Medical Director of Trauma Services at Maricopa Medical Center in Phoenix, Arizona, where he has served since 2008. He is also the Medical Director of the Tactical Medicine Program at Maricopa. Dr. Vail completed his undergraduate training at George Washington University in Washington, DC with a major in zoology, and a master’s degree in physiology from Georgetown University in Washington, DC. His medical school training was also completed at Georgetown University School of Medicine in Washington, DC, and his General Surgery residency was done at Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. While in residency, he was the recipient of the first Frank H. Sivitz, MD Award for Outstanding Resident. Dr. Vail went on to complete two fellowships, on in Surgical & Trauma Critical Care and one in Trauma and Emergency Surgery, both from the University of Miami, Jackson Memorial Hospital, in Miami, Florida. He is board certified in both general surgery and surgical critical care. While on staff at Carilion Health System in Roanoke, Virginia, he was awarded the Annual House staff Award for Outstanding Teacher, the 2005 Celebration of Life Award from LifeNet –Virginia, for Significant Contribution in the Area of Organ & Tissue Donation, and the Celebration of Heroes Award from the Roanoke Valley Chapter of the American Red Cross.
Dr. Vail has authored many peer-reviewed articles and textbook chapters, and his research and clinical interests include the management of thoracic and abdominal injuries, wound ballistics, tactical medicine, organ donation, nutritional aspects of critical care management, and the regionalization of critical care services. He is a nationally recognized speaker and participated in multiple conferences.
Michele Ziglar, MSN, RN Director Trauma & Aeromedical Services Shands at the University of Florida Gainesville, Florida
Michele Ziglar has dedicated her past 20 years of nursing to trauma program development and research. She is currently the Director of Trauma & Aeromedical Services at Shands at the University of Florida in Gainesville. She has been active in many professional organizations, including the Society of Trauma Nurses (STN), the Emergency Nurses Association (ENA), the American Trauma Society (ATS), and in regional and state trauma organizations. She is the current president of the Association of Florida Trauma Coordinators (AFTC) and Vice-President of the North Central Florida Trauma Agency (NCFTA). She is a previous board member and Education Committee Chair of STN. She is also a consultant/ site surveyor for the Pennsylvania Trauma Systems Foundation and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.
Michele received her MSN in administration from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She has been the recipient of multiple awards, including an Annual Student Research Award and an MSN Student Excellence Award, both from Sigma Theta Tau International (Gamma Zeta Chapter). She has also received service and recognition awards from the ENA, STN, and ATS. Her busy career has spanned many roles, including bedside staff nurse, EMS and trauma educator and coordinator, regional trauma coordinator, trauma program manager and director, and trauma unit nurse manager. Throughout her career, she has presented at many national conferences.
She has coordinated many research and project grants, and has co-authored multiple publications in the care of trauma patients. Her areas of research interest include inter-hospital trauma transfers, telemedicine, hospital preparedness and mass casualty training, ICU surge capacity, burn training, hemorrhagic shock, resuscitation, the evaluation of cervical spine injuries, care of the obese trauma patient, and clinical decision making,
