Faculty

Nibras Bughrara, MD, is an assistant professor of anesthesiology and critical care medicine, surgery, and internal medicine. He completed his critical care medicine fellowship and advanced perioperative echocardiography training at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Currently he is the division chief of anesthesia critical care and the founder and director of the Critical Care Echocardiography Program at Albany Medical College in Albany, NY. Dr. Bughrara is the principal investigator (PI) of an ongoing multicenter study on blending focused transthoracic echocardiography learning in existing anesthesiology residency training programs and the PI of a multicenter study on performing focused echocardiographic evaluation in life support for in-hospital cardiac arrest patients.  [top]

Melissa Byrne, DO, MPH, FASA, is a graduate of Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine. After residency in anesthesiology at the University of Michigan, she worked in private practice in Virginia before returning to her home in Michigan to complete a fellowship in Regional and Ambulatory Anesthesia. Her interests include resident education and Point of Care Ultrasound (POCUS). She has recently been named assistant director for POCUS where she is active in curriculum development.  [top]

Laura Giron-Arango, MD, is an anesthesiologist trained in Medellín-Colombia. She did a regional anesthesia fellowship at Toronto Western Hospital/University of Toronto in 2017. After that, she moved back to Colombia, where she worked at Hospital Pablo Tobón Uribe in Medellín as a staff anesthesiologist in charge of the regional anesthesia program. In 2021, she returned to Toronto for a point-of-care ultrasound fellowship at Sunnybrook Hospital / University of Toronto. Since 2023, she has worked as a staff anesthesiologist at Toronto Western Hospital and is an assistant professor at the University of Toronto. [top]

Andrea Gomez-Morad, MD, is a pediatric anesthesiologist with training in regional anesthesia from Boston Children's Hospital, currently working at Hilo Medical Center in Hawaii. She has a wide experience in pediatric regional anesthesia and point-of-care ultrasound. She has organized and participated as an instructor in multiple conferences related to pediatric, regional, and Point of Care Ultrasound around the world. She has a special interest in technology and global health. She has help developing and teaching pediatric anesthesia courses for low resource settings working with organizations like Lifebox and WFSA (SAFE). [top]

John Hagen, MD, MBA, FAAP, FASA, completed his residency at Mount Sinai in NY, followed by a pediatric fellowship at U of M with a special focus on congenital cardiac anesthesia. After training, he worked for many years at Cohen Children’s as the Director of Pediatric Cardiac Anesthesia. He is currently the Director for Pediatric Anesthesia at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, as well as the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of baby-blocks.com, a vanguard of pediatric perioperative ultrasound & regional anesthesia. [top]

Hari Kalagara, MD, is passionate about regional anesthesia and has completed a regional anesthesia fellowship at Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, OH. He has attained European Diploma in Regional Anesthesia (EDRA) by the European Society of Regional Anaesthesia and Pain Therapy and was awarded the ASRA Resident/Fellow of the Year Award in 2017. Dr. Kalagara served as Point-of-Care Ultrasound (POCUS) Director at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). Dr. Kalagara holds certifications in perioperative echocardiography and critical care echocardiography by the National Board of Echocardiography (NBE). Dr. Kalagara is currently working as an assistant professor in Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine at the Mayo Clinic with special interest in regional anesthesia and POCUS. He is currently the Chair of ASRA Pain Medicine POCUS courses. [top]

Sana Khan, MD, has been in practice for 10 years. She completed her fellowship in Regional Anesthesia and Acute Pain. She was in private practice for about 4 years but missed the academic setting. Since June of 2020, she transitioned to academic anesthesiology at UT Houston. She enjoys teaching residents and fellows. She has a special interest in point-of-care ultrasound and truly believes it's the future of medicine. [top]

Sree Kolli, MD, is a regional anesthesiologist and point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) enthusiast. Dr. Kolli trained at the Cleveland Clinic for his anesthesia residency and fellowship in acute pain and regional anesthesia. He completed training in the United Kingdom and attained European Diploma in Regional Anesthesia from the European Society of Regional Anaesthesia and Pain Therapy in 2011. Dr. Kolli is the organizer and primary activity director for the Cleveland Clinic's Cadaver Regional Anesthesia & POCUS Workshops and the Chronic Pain Ultrasound Workshops at the Pain Management Symposium. He is currently the associate program director for the regional anesthesia fellowship program at the Cleveland Clinic. [top]

Andrzej Kwater, MD, is an assistant professor in the department of anesthesiology and perioperative medicine at MD Anderson Cancer Center. He completed fellowship training in regional anesthesiology and acute pain medicine at UT Health-McGovern. He currently works in the neuroanesthesia, pediatric anesthesia, and acute pain/regional sections within his department. Dr. Kwater also serves as the associate program director for the regional anesthesia and acute pain medicine fellowship at MD Anderson. His clinical interests include regional anesthesia, POCUS, and education. [top]

Joseph Minardi, MD, is a professor and the division chief of emergency ultrasound in the department of emergency medicine in the West Virginia University School of Medicine. Dr. Minardi founded and directs the WVU Medicine Center for Point-of-Care Ultrasound with the directive of implementing POCUS technology and workflows at over 20 hospitals and numerous clinical sites in 5 states. Dr. Minardi is the founding Director of the WVU Clinical Ultrasound Fellowship, the only fellowship of its kind in West Virginia. [top]

Suryakumar Narayanasamy, MD, is a pediatric anesthesiologist and POCUS enthusiast who has been teaching and learning POCUS for the past five years. His focus area of interest is gastric ultrasound primarily for NPO violations and patients on GLP-1 receptor agonists. [top]

Theresa Northern, DO, MPH, is an anesthesiologist practicing in Colorado Springs at UC Health. She is an adjunct faculty at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and Rocky Vista University College of Osteopathic Medicine. Previously she was an assistant professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham where she completed a fellowship in regional anesthesia and acute pain medicine. She is a Diplomate in Basic Perioperative Transesophageal Echocardiography certified from the National Board of Echocardiography and has completed the Diagnostic POCUS Certificate Program by the American Society of Anesthesiologists. During her residency in anesthesiology at Ochsner in New Orleans, she was selected as a Society for Education in Anesthesia Health Volunteers Overseas (SEA-HVO) Traveling Fellowship Recipient. Recognizing the increasing availability of ultrasound globally and its utility across multiple clinical realms, her dream is to teach POCUS in resource-challenged environments where its impact is exponential. [top]

Poonam Pai, MD, MS, FASA, FASRA, is a regional anesthesiology faculty, regional anesthesiology and acute medicine fellowship program director, and assistant professor at Mount Sinai Morningside and West Hospitals in New York City. She is actively involved with ASRA, ASA, PGA and NYSORA and holds several demonstrations on ultrasound-guided nerve block workshops at these meetings. She has several publications and book chapters to her credit. She is actively involved in clinical research and has numerous ongoing research projects currently in the department. [top]

Pablo Perez d'Empaire, MD, FRCPC, FCCM, FASE, is a Cardiovascular Anesthesiologist and Perioperative Echocardiography at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre at the University of Toronto in Ontario, Canada. He is an assistant professor at the University of Toronto in the Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine. He received his medical degree from the University of Zulia, Venezuela, and completed a Critical Care Medicine Fellowship and a Cardiovascular Anesthesiology Fellowship at the University of Toronto. He has earned Advanced Perioperative Echocardiography and Critical Care Echocardiography (CCEeXAM) certifications from the National Board of Echocardiography. He is the University of Toronto's Anesthesiology Postgraduate Residency program POCUS curriculum coordinator and Director of the Sunnybrook Perioperative POCUS Fellowship Program. [top]

Sudipta Sen, MD, is an associate professor at McGovern Medical School at UT Houston specializing in regional anesthesia and acute pain medicine. Dr. Sen is the division director for orthopedic anesthesia and associate director of operating rooms and perioperative anesthesia clinic at Memorial Herman Hospital in the Texas Medical Center. [top]

Michael Singleton, MD, is an assistant attending anesthesiologist and assistant clinical director at the Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS).  After finishing medical school in Indiana, he completed a residency at Utah where he developed an interest in both regional anesthesia and the use of POCUS.  He continued to develop his interests in the different applications of ultrasound as a fellow in regional anesthesiology at HSS.  After fellowship, he worked at Vanderbilt before returning to HSS as faculty. [top]