Loren Berman, M.D. is a surgery resident who received her undergraduate degree in neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania and her medical degree at Johns Hopkins. She has completed two years of a general surgery residency at Yale and will return when she has completed the Clinical Scholars program. Dr. Berman has particular interests in pediatric surgery and vascular surgery. She is currently working on a project to facilitate shared decision-making for patients with abdominal aortic aneurysms who are considering repairs.
Brendan
Carr, M.D., M.A.
University of Pennsylvania
Brendan Carr, M.D., M.A. is an emergency
medicine physician who attended medical
school at Temple University. He completed
his residency in emergency medicine and
fellowship in trauma and surgical critical
care at the Hospital of the University of
Pennsylvania. Dr. Carr is interested in
injury science, evidence-based categorization
of Emergency Departments, and applying the
trauma model of regionalized care systems
to other disease processes.
Back to top
Christi
Cavaliere, M.D.
University of Michigan
Christi Cavaliere, M.D. is a plastic surgeon
from the University of Michigan who is a
Veterans
Affairs Fellow in the Clinical Scholars
Program. She is interested in studying factors
leading to the development of chronic wounds
and evaluating barriers to achieving wound
closure.
Nabila Dahodwala, MD graduated magna cum laude from Duke University with a degree in biology and then went on to Columbia University for her medical degree. She spent one year during medical school on a fellowship in Peru investigating patterns of sexually transmitted diseases and risk factors for burns in children. Nabila just recently completed neurology residency at the University of Pennsylvania. As a clinical scholar, her research interests include health care disparities, movement disorders and expectations on aging.
Mehul Dalal, M.D., M.Sc. is an internist who received his undergraduate degree in neuroscience at Brown University and both his medical degree and masters in Community Medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. He completed a primary care medicine residency at New York University/Bellevue Hospital after which he stayed on as an attending physician for one year. Dr. Dalal’s research interest is in the application of clinical practice guidelines in the primary care setting.
Jamila
Davison, M.D.
University of California, Los Angeles
Jamila Davison, M.D. is an emergency medicine physician who is a Veterans Affairs Fellow in the Clinical Scholars program. She completed residency in emergency medicine at Emory University, and received her undergraduate degree at Xavier University in New Orleans where she majored in biology. Dr. Davison completed her medical degree at Meharry Medical College in Nashville. She is interested in studying the effects of social determinants on health outcomes for vulnerable populations.
Lisa Diamond, M.D., M.P.H. (VA Scholar) is an internist who received her undergraduate degree at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, and then earned her MPH at Johns Hopkins. She received her medical degree at George Washington University and completed her residency in internal medicine at Columbia University Medical Center. Dr. Diamond is interested in a career that combines medicine and public policy. She is particularly interested in how language barriers affect quality of care and has several concurrent research projects on this topic.
Jason
Fish, M.D.
University of California, Los Angeles
Jason Fish, M.D., is an internist who completed his residency training at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He completed his undergraduate degree at Whittier College with a focus on English literature, philosophy and mathematics. After his undergraduate years, he worked as a paralegal on projects involving groundwater contamination and a national class action for individuals with hemophilia and AIDS. From this experience, he decided to become a physician, completing first a post-baccalaureate premedicine program at Columbia University and then earning his medical degree from Cornell University. While in residency at UCLA, Dr. Fish worked on a project from the Translating Research Into Action for Diabetes study (TRIAD), examining the quality implications for diabetes care of a change from multispecialty group to individual provider direct contracting. His current research interests are in 2 areas: 1) understanding relationships between neighborhoods and health; and 2) the development and evaluation of web-based tools designed to improve the delivery and effectiveness of medical education.
Rebekah
Gee, M.D., M.P.H.
University of Pennsylvania
Rebekah Gee, MD, MPH is an Obstetrician/Gynecologist. She studied history and obtained an M.P.H. at Columbia, studied medicine at Cornell, and trained in Obstetrics and Gynecology at The Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospitals. During her training, she worked at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service’s office on women’s health, traveled to Cuba studying maternal and child health, and worked on public health projects in Ecuador. During her Obstetrics/Gynecology residency, she co-wrote legislation currently in effect that assures that rape victims receive emergency contraception when they present to a Massachusetts emergency room, and that patients in Massachusetts can obtain Plan B through a behind the counter arrangement. She was also a plaintiff in a law suit against Wal-mart that resulted in a national policy change by Wal-Mart to agree to stock Plan B in its pharmacies.
She has been active in professional organizations and was a student leader in the AMA, serving on a national advisory committee for Scientific Affairs. She is currently on the Gynecology practice bulletins committee for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which helps define standards of care for gynecology. Dr. Gee is the recipient of numerous awards during her training, and the recent recipient of the Choice USA Award for her commitment to women’s health. Her current research focuses on and measuring levels of domestic violence in a population of women obtaining gynecologic care and abortions and barriers to access of contraception.
Carla Keirns, M.D., Ph.D. is an internist
from the University of Pennsylvania who
holds a Ph.D. in the History and Sociology
of Science. The topic of her Ph.D. is also
the clinical topic she would like to study
– asthma – particularly the
association of high community rates of asthma
with low socio-economic status.
Anish
Mahajan, M.D.
University of California, Los Angeles
Anish P. Mahajan, M.D. is an internist who completed his residency at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He received both his B.A. in public policy and a medical degree from Brown University. Prior to residency, he also completed a master’s in public health at Harvard School of Public Health. Dr. Mahajan’s previous research work was focused on developing low cost monitoring strategies for HIV therapy and characterizing the response of the private sector to AIDS in southern Africa. As a RWJ Clinical Scholar, he is studying the implementation of routine HIV testing in healthcare settings among vulnerable minority populations from clinical and policy perspectives.
Giridhar Mallya, MD is a family physician who completed medical school at Brown University through the Program in Liberal Medical Education and residency at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. During medical school, he co-directed medical student initiatives at a free clinic serving undocumented Latino immigrants and engaged in clinical and advocacy work in Cochabamba, Bolivia, and Eldoret, Kenya. As a resident, he conducted research on Medicare Part D through the Robert Graham Center for Policy Studies in Family Medicine and Primary Care in Washington, D.C. His research interests as a Clinical Scholar focus on access to primary care for vulnerable populations. He is collaborating with another Scholar on two projects exploring the impact of high-deductible health plans on use of preventive services. Plus, he is working with community health centers in Philadelphia to understand how spatial access and social and environmental factors affect access to care for low-income and uninsured city residents.
Veronica
Meneses, M.D.
University of California, Los Angeles
Veronica Meneses, M.D. is a pediatrician who completed residency at Loma Linda Children’s Hospital. She received her undergraduate degree from Whittier College, majoring in both English literature and biochemistry. After college, she went to Boston and participated in public health research examining services to individuals with disabilities and the health status of Latinos. She then earned her medical degree from Cornell University in New York City. Dr. Meneses completed her internship in pediatrics at the University of Texas-Houston. Her research interest focuses on identifying barriers to medical care for children with special healthcare needs, particularly those who are technology-dependent. She is Latina and is committed to being an advocate for Spanish-speaking populations.
Ana-Claire
Meyer, M.D.
University of California, Los Angeles
Ana-Claire Meyer, M.D. is a neurologist who is a Veterans Affairs Fellow in the Clinical Scholars program. Dr. Meyer completed her residency in Boston at the Partners Neurology program of the Brigham and Women's Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital. She received her undergraduate degree from Amherst College where she was a women and gender studies and chemistry major and later completed medical school at Harvard Medical School. As a neurologist, Dr. Meyer focuses on infectious diseases of the nervous system and epilepsy. Through her research interests, she hopes to improve access to neurological care for underserved populations. Also, she is interested in access to specialty care by vulnerable populations such as recent immigrants or non-English speaking patients with a particular focus on the Asian-American population.
Manya Newton, M.D., MPH is an emergency physician. She studied English and anthropology at Rice University, medicine at New York University School of Medicine, and public health at Columbia University prior to her training in emergency medicine at the University of Michigan. Her primary interests are social disparities in the emergency department and the demography and economics of the uninsured. As a Clinical Scholar, Dr. Newton conducted research to evaluate the feasibility of a health and legal intervention for the uninsured in the emergency department and is currently evaluating the differences in PCP usage, ED usage, and health outcomes between urban and rural uninsured. Dr. Newton is enrolled in the PhD program at the University of Michigan School of Public Health and was just awarded the Rackham Merit Award for her research on and interest in health disparities and the underserved.
Joshua
Newman, M.D.
University of California, Los Angeles
Joshua Newman, M.D. is a family medicine physician who completed residency at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center. He received an undergraduate degree in religion from Northwestern University and did post-baccalaureate pre-medical sciences at University of Chicago and Northwestern. He graduated from University of Illinois at Chicago Medical School. Dr. Newman's experience in health information technology includes developing systems to facilitate residency administration and education, and actively helping to implement an electronic medical record at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center and throughout their eight-hospital system. He is interested in using clinical electronic health systems to gather useful data and improve quality and efficiency, especially in undercapitalized and underserved settings. He is also interested in ways technology can enable people to have easier access to and greater participation in their health care, specifically by promoting the use of mobile phones and the internet as a health information and communications tool.
Anisha
Patel, M.D.
University of California, Los Angeles
Anisha Patel, M.D. is a pediatrician who completed her residency and chief residency at Stanford University. She completed her undergraduate degree at North Carolina-Chapel Hill where she was both a chemistry and anthropology major. She also completed her medical degree and M.S.P.H. in maternal and child health at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Dr. Patel’s current research interests are in partnered research with parents and families to prevent childhood obesity. In particular she is working with the Latino community in Los Angeles.
Craig
Pollack, M.D., M.H.S.
University of Pennsylvania
Craig Pollack, MD, MHS is an internist and a Veteran's Affairs Fellow. He graduated from the University of California at San Francisco School of Medicine where he received the Robert Crede Award for excellence in primary care. During medical school, he spent a year in Duesseldorf, Germany performing social epidemiology research on the built and social environments. For his master’s degree in Health Sciences from UC Berkeley, he traveled to Bosnia-Herzegovina with funding provided by the UC Berkeley Human Rights Center. He examined repatriation and mourning of the survivors of the massacre at Srebrenica. He did his residency at UCSF and the San Francisco General Hospital Primary Care Track. His current research focuses on reducing socioeconomic disparities in health. He is investigating how different insurance designs, specifically consumer-directed health plans, affect doctor-patient decision-making for patients with low socioeconomic status. Additionally, he is examining disparities in the treatment of prostate cancer and the measurement of wealth in health research.
Edmondo
Robinson, M.D., M.B.A.
University of Pennsylvania
Edmondo Robinson, M.D., M.B.A. is an internist who completed residency at the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. He is a 2003 graduate and Dean's Merit Scholarship recipient of the University of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine. During a two-year leave of absence from medical school, Dr. Robinson earned a Master's degree in business administration, with an emphasis in healthcare management, from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He completed his undergraduate degree in Neuroscience at the University of California, San Diego in 1997. His research interest involves understanding the effect of pay-for-performance hospital measures on vulnerable populations.
Ann-Marie Rosland, MD is a general internist examining the care of adult chronic diseases, with an emphasis on chronic disease care in underserved communities. She received her MD from Washington University Medical School in St. Louis, and was an internal medicine resident at the University of Pennsylvania, where she was designated the C. William Hansen Primary Care Resident of the Year. Prior to entering the Clinical Scholars program she worked as a clinician in the Philadelphia Department of Public Health Community Health Centers. Dr. Rosland has presented research on uninsured U.S. Veterans and on teaching Community Oriented Primary Care to resident physicians. She has been invited to speak to medical trainees on physician advocacy and on caring for underserved patients. Her current research projects address social barriers to chronic disease care and the role of family and community health workers in a Community Based Participatory Research intervention for diabetes patients in Detroit, Michigan.
Calie Santana, M.D. is an internist who received her undergraduate degree in Spanish literature at Cornell University and her medical degree from Harvard. She completed her internal medicine residency at Cornell and was in practice there until joining the Clinical Scholars program. Her research focuses on the impact of systems of care and practice models related to the quality of chronic disease management. She is specifically interested in understanding the organizational characteristics of primary care sites that enable or impede quality improvement in complex diseases and how to intervene in the provider-system interface to improve quality.
Peter Schilling, M.D. is a general surgery
resident from Stanford University who wishes
to learn how to evaluate the outcomes of
surgical procedures, including bariatric
surgery. He is also interested in obesity,
especially in the pediatric population,
and in preparedness for catastrophic events.
Rashmi
Shetgiri, M.D.
University of California, Los Angeles
Rashmi Shetgiri, M.D. is a pediatrician who completed residency at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. She received her undergraduate degree in biology from Drew University in Madison, New Jersey. She completed her medical degree at UMDNJ Medical School in Newark. Dr. Shetgiri’s research interests are to develop and evaluate community-based interventions to decrease youth violence. She also has a strong interest in childhood nutrition and food insecurity.
Rachel Skeete, M.D. is an internist who received her undergraduate degree in Community Health from Brown University. Following graduation, she worked as a coordinator for AmeriCorps and then returned to Brown for medical school. She completed a general internal medicine residency at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. After residency, she worked as a hospitalist within the VA system and was an attending physician on the Rapid Response Team at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Dr. Skeete is interested in research on health disparities with particular emphasis on the social and environmental factors that influence health outcomes. She is interested in examining the impact of neighborhood contextual factors on outcomes in chronic disease and using this to direct health policy research.
Brett Stauffer, M.D. (VA Scholar) is an internist who received his undergraduate degrees in genetics and philosophy from the University of Kansas, and his medical degree from the New Jersey Medical School. He completed his residency at the University of Texas Southwestern and spent two years on faculty as an assistant professor in general internal medicine. He also worked part-time for the Strategic Planning Office of Parkland Health and Hospital System. Dr. Stauffer's research focuses on identifying effective transfers of care from hospital to home and the integration of inpatient and outpatient systems. His current clinical work is as a hospitalist at the West Haven Veterans Affairs Hospital.
Joahd Toure, M.D. is an internist who was raised
in Stroughton, Massachusetts and attended Harvard
University where he obtained an undergraduate
degree in biochemistry. He then moved to New Haven
to attend medical school at Yale and upon graduation
remained to complete the internal medicine residency
program at Yale New Haven Hospital. He became
interested in outcomes research during residency
where he studied referral and treatment patterns
among patients with chronic hepatitis C. Dr. Toure’s
research interests include appropriate models
of care for chronic hepatitis C patients and outcomes
in hepatitis C. He is also interested in work
which demonstrates how the removal of socioeconomic
barriers improve overall health – in particular
how health outcomes are improved when the unemployed
find work.
Cheerag Upadhyaya is a neurosurgeon from
the University of Michigan who is a Veterans
Affairs Fellow in the Clinical Scholars
Program. Dr. Upadhyaya wants to do research
designed to improve outcomes for patients
with two relatively common problems: low
back pain and subarachnoid hemorrhage.
Michael Volk, M.D. is a transplant hepatologist
who is a Veterans
Affairs Fellow in the Clinical Scholars
Program. He completed his residency training
at the University of Virginia, and fellowship
training at the University of Michigan.
His research interests include outcomes
in liver transplantation, and the ethics
of resource allocation.
Heather Yeo, M.D. is a surgery resident who received both her undergraduate and medical degrees from Georgetown University. She has completed two years of a general surgery residency at Yale and will return when she has completed the Clinical Scholars program. Dr. Yeo’s research interests include patient participation, the effectiveness of educational interventions, and the role of the Internet in medical decision-making. She recently completed a study evaluating the validity and accuracy of thyroid cancer information on the Internet, which was published in Thyroid. She is also beginning a study using an educational tool to improve patients’ anxiety and coping with thyroid disease. Her areas of interest include GI, colorectal and endocrine surgery. Dr. Yeo also has a strong interest in surgical resident education and training and is working with the American Board of Surgery on a national cohort project of all surgical residents to study attrition rates in surgical residency programs.
