Faculty

Hari Kalagara, MD; Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, FL (Chair)

Nibras Bughrara, MD; Albany Medical College, Delmar, NY
Melissa Byrne, DO, MPH; University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
Johanna Blair de Haan, MD; University of Texas at Houston McGovern School of Medicine, Houston, TX
Stephen Haskins, MD; Hospital for Special Surgery, New York, NY
Nadia Hernandez, MD; University of Texas at Houston McGovern School of Medicine, Houston, TX
Robert Jones, DO; MetroHealth Medical Center, Chagrin Falls, OH
Hari Kalagara, MD; Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, FL
Lars Knudsen, MD, PhD; USabcd, Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus, Risskov, Denmark
Abhilash Koratala, MD; Medical College of Wisconsin, Brookfield, WI
Kwesi Kwofie, MD; Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada
William Manson, MD; University of Virginia Health System, Charlottesville, VA
Oliver Panzer, MD; Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY
Erik Sloth, MD, PhD; USabcd, Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus, Risskov, Denmark
Rakesh Sondekoppam Vijayashankar, MD; University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, Iowa City, IA

Sivasenthil Arumugam, MD; Woodland Anesthesiology Associates/ University of Connecticut, Avon, CT  
Elird Bojaxhi, MD; Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, FL 
Iyabo Muse, MD; Westchester Medical Center/NYMC, Valhalla, NY
Pete Pelletier, MD; Rush University, Chicago, IL
Jennifer Potter, MD; Aspen Valley Hospital, Aspen, CO
Ana Sjaus, MD; Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada
Marissa Weber, MD; Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY

eLearning Curriculum Authors 

Thomas Fichtner Bendtsen, MD, PhD; USabcd, Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus, Risskov, Denmark
Jan Boublik, MD, PhD; Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA
Stephen Haskins, MD; Hospital for Special Surgery, New York, NY
Lars Knudsen, MD, PhD; USabcd, Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus, Risskov, Denmark
William Manson, MD; University of Virginia Health System, Charlottesville, VA
Anahi Perlas, MD, FRCPC; Toronto Western Hospital, Toronto, Canada
Erik Sloth, MD, PhD; USabcd, Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus, Risskov, Denmark

Sivasenthil Arumugam, MD, MBBS, FASA, is in private practice with Woodland Anesthesiology Associates in Hartford, CT. He is also an associate clinical professor at the University of Connecticut and residency site director at the St. Francis Hospital & Medical center. Dr. Arumugam is an examiner at the American Board of Anesthesiology. He continues to serve in various positions and is currently the president of The Connecticut State Society of Anesthesiologists. His special interests include regional anesthesia, point of care ultrasound, perioperative medicine, teaching, and clinical research. [top]

Elird Bojaxhi, MD, FASA, is an assistant professor of anesthesiology and perioperative medicine at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, FL. He is passionate about regional anesthesia and completed his regional anesthesia and acute pain medicine fellowship at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, PA. He also serves as the associate fellowship director in regional anesthesia at Mayo Clinic Florida. Dr. Bojaxhi has a special interest in neuroanesthesia, which includes regional anesthesia techniques for “awake” craniotomies, “awake” spine surgery, and management of acute on chronic pain for major spine surgery. His interest in point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) primarily focuses on gastric ultrasonography and perioperative echocardiography. [top]

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, 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 back 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]

J. Blair de Haan, MD, became an assistant professor of anesthesiology at the UT Health Science Center in Houston following completion of her fellowship training. Her focus is on regional anesthesia, acute pain medicine, and solid organ transplantation including liver, kidney, and pancreas transplants. She is highly involved in the educational division of her department, as an assistant program director for the anesthesiology residency program, and program director of the regional anesthesia and acute pain medicine fellowship at UT Houston. [top]

Stephen Haskins, MD, is a regional anesthesiologist trained at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York, NY. During his fellowship, Dr. Haskins developed an interest in point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS), specifically focused cardiac ultrasound, lung ultrasound, abdominal ultrasound, and gastric ultrasound. Dr. Haskins is the co-founder and chair of the ASRA Pain Medicine Perioperative POCUS Special Interest Group. He is also lead author for POCUS for the regional anesthesiologist and pain specialist review series in Regional Anesthesia & Pain Medicine. [top]

Nadia Hernandez, MD, completed her anesthesiology residency at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Health System in New York, NY, followed by fellowship training in regional anesthesia and acute pain medicine. She moved back home to Texas where she serves as an assistant professor of anesthesiology at the University of Texas (UT) at Houston McGovern School of Medicine. After one year, Dr. Hernandez revamped the regional anesthesiology fellowship and was promoted to director of regional anesthesiology at UT Houston as well as program chair of the Regional Anesthesia and Perioperative Ultrasound Fellowship. She is one of the co-founding members of the ASRA Perioperative Point-of-Care Ultrasound Special Interest Group. [top]

Robert Jones, DO, has been performing POCUS exams in the ED for over 30 years. Dr. Jones has been involved in the POCUS community at the national and international levels. He previously served as the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) Ultrasound Section chair and is a contributor to the ACEP Ultrasound Guidelines. At MetroHealth, Dr. Jones developed the emergency medicine POCUS program and fellowship 19 years ago, and now serves as the system-wide POCUS co-chair for his hospital system. At Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, he is an assistant dean for clerkship education and directs the pre-clerkship ultrasound program. [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]

Lars Knudsen, MD, PhD, is chief anaesthetist and PhD at Aarhus University Hospital and helicopter emergency medical service physician at the air ambulance service of Denmark. He is a Scandinavian pioneer within the field of emergency and anesthesia ultrasound, focusing on ultrasound guided management of the airway, respiration, circulation, and vascular access. He is a faculty member on several ultrasound courses and is the co-developer of the essential emergency ultrasonography concept. He is a co-founder of usabcd.org. [top]

Abhilash Koratala, MD, is a nephrologist and currently the Director of Clinical Imaging for Nephrology at the Medical College of Wisconsin. He is an internationally acclaimed leader in nephrology-related point-of-care ultrasonography (POCUS) and published his experience with POCUS curriculum administration in the American Journal of Kidney Diseases and Kidney360. Dr. Koratala promotes POCUS on online platforms such as Twitter and authors a series of posts for a feature called “Focus on POCUN” on the Renal Fellow Network, a nephrology blog that partners with the American Society of Nephrology (ASN). His online POCUS teaching tool NephroPOCUS.com won the ASN Innovations in Kidney Education Contest in 2020. Apart from POCUS, he enjoys all aspects of nephrology and has authored over 160 scientific publications in PubMed-indexed peer-reviewed journals to date. [top]

Kwesi Kwofie, MD, FRCPC, is an associate professor and director of acute pain and regional anesthesia at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada. He is the past chair of the regional anesthesia and acute pain section of the Canadian Anesthesiologist’s Society and current associate editor for regional anesthesia in ASRA Pain Medicine News. He has published many peer-reviewed articles, given many lectures, and presented workshops in five continents on his many interests, which include ultrasound guided peripheral nerve blockade, mechanisms of peripheral nerve injury, acute pain management, and obstetrical anesthesia. [top]

William Manson, MD, is an anesthesiologist at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. He originally trained in emergency medicine and completed a fellowship in emergency ultrasound. Following ultrasound training, he became the associate director and then director of emergency ultrasound in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Emory University in Atlanta, GA. Then, he undertook training in anesthesiology at the University of Texas Southwestern/Parkland in Dallas, followed by a regional anesthesiology fellowship at the University of Virginia. Dr. Manson’s research focus is perioperative point-of-care ultrasound. [top]

Iyabo Muse, MD, FASA, is an assistant professor of anesthesiology in the division of regional anesthesia and acute pain medicine at Westchester Medical Center/NYMC and serves as the assistant residency director for PGY-1 residents. After completing residency at Montefiore Medical Center, she completed a fellowship in regional anesthesia and acute pain medicine at Hospital for Special Surgery in New York. Dr. Muse’s clinical focus is primarily on orthopedic procedures, the use of peripheral nerve blocks, and multimodal pain strategies for perioperative pain management. [top]

Oliver Panzer, MD, completed his critical care fellowship at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC). After that, Dr. Panzer joined the faculty in the divisions of regional anesthesia and critical care in 2006. Early on he was fascinated by the impact of perioperative ultrasound on their clinical practice. He created and led perioperative ultrasound workshops and lectures for multiple classes of residents and critical care fellows at CUMC. Dr. Panzer became the director of perioperative ultrasonography in 2010 and lead the departmental perioperative ultrasound curriculum committee. He has taught courses nationally at the ASA meetings since 2010, the PGA meetings in New York since 2014, and the FATE course since 2016. [top]

Pete Pelletier, MD, is the associate residency program director and an assistant professor of anesthesiology at Rush University Medical Center. He has a diverse practice and is a member of the cardiac, liver transplant, obstetric and regional anesthesia, and POCUS teams. [top]

Jennifer Potter, MD, is an anesthesiologist at Aspen Valley Hospital in Aspen, CO. After finishing undergrad and medical school at Duke University, she completed residency training at the University of Utah and Stanford University. She then completed a regional anesthesiology fellowship at the University of Virginia (UVA) and practiced for UVA for 5 years before moving to Colorado. Dr. Potter is a Testamur in the National Board of Echocardiography Examination of Special Competence in Advanced Perioperative Transesophageal Echocardiography (PTEeXAM). [top]

Ana Sjaus, MD, uses her fellowship training in transthoracic and transeosphageal echocardiography to provide fine-tuned, personalized perioperative care to her patients. Her clinical and research interests include cardiac disease in pregnancy and the use of echocardiography in peripartum acute care. She teaches echocardiography to all medical learners of all types - from medical students to seasoned colleagues. [top]

Erik Sloth, MD, PhD, is a professor of point-of-care ultrasound. He has authored 150 papers, mainly on hemodynamics and focused transthoracic echo. Dr. Sloth developed the FATE-protocol (Focus Assessed Transthoracic Echo) almost 30 years ago, recognizing him as the founder of point-of-care cardiac-pulmonary ultrasound. He has developed a unique learning concept, based on pre-course eLearning and systematic and comprehensive hands-on training. His innovative ideas, that all critical care physicians should learn FATE, is becoming reality. [top]

Rakesh Sondekoppam, MD, is the division director of regional anesthesia and acute pain medicine at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine in Iowa City. He heads the acute pain and regional anesthesia services at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics (UIHC) and continues to be involved in resident and fellowship training at the UIHC. He is also the founding member and current vice chair of the ASRA Pain Medicine Green Anesthesia special interest group. [top]

Marissa Weber, MD, is a clinical instructor for Weill Cornell Medical College at New York Presbyterian Hospital. Her medical education began in Philadelphia at Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University, where she also completed her anesthesia residency. She moved to NYC to complete her regional and acute pain fellowship at Columbia University where she first became interested in POCUS. As an attending at Cornell, she enjoys engaging in resident education with a focus on regional anesthesia and POCUS. [top]