2023 Virtual Fall Forum Faculty

Trent Bryson, MD Associate Professor, Deputy CMIO, Dept. of Anesthesiology and Pain Management University of Texas Southwestern	Dr. Bryson attended medical school at the University of Texas Houston where he graduated in 2008. He did his anesthesia residency at the University of Colorado in Aurora, Colorado where he trained under Drs. Joy Hawkins, Brenda Bucklin, and Andi Traynor. After completing residency in 2012, he moved back home to Dallas, Texas where he has worked at the University of Texas Southwestern since and is now an Associate Professor. He has had a varied clinical footprint there where he covers general OR cases, the regional anesthesia service, and of course obstetric anesthesia. He wears many hats at UT Southwestern, including that of Deputy Chief Medical Information Officer since 2014. In that role he has championed and helped roll out countless quality improvement initiatives including achieving standardized epidural dosing algorithms, converting to standardized intraoperative oxytocin dosing, creating tools to improve timing and compliance with intrapartum and post partum rounding, implementing intraoperative syringe barcoding and scanning, and reducing electronic professional billing chart returns to providers to under 1%. He is also currently serving as one of only a couple obstetric anesthesiologists on Epic’s international EMR steering board for adult anesthesia development.
Anton Chau, MD Obstetric Anesthesiologist and Clinical Associate Professor University of British Columbia Vancouver, Canada	Dr. Anton Chau is an Obstetric Anesthesiologist and Clinical Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. He currently serves as the Director of Obstetric Anesthesia at St. Paul’s Hospital and Director of Research at BC Women’s Hospital. In addition to these roles, Dr. Chau is an Associate Editor for Anaesthesia Journal, the Treasurer-Secretary for the Canadian Anesthesiologists’ Society Obstetric Section, and a member of the SOAP Research Steering Committee. Dr. Chau's research interests primarily focus on neuraxial analgesia and anesthesia techniques, obstetric general anesthesia, and patient safety.
Carlos Delgado, MD Assistant Professor, Associate Director Obstetric Anesthesia Division University of Washington	Carlos Delgado Upegui, MD, is an obstetric anesthesiologist at the University of Washington in Seattle, WA and an Associate Professor of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine. He is currently the associate director of the Obstetric Anesthesia division. His clinical and research interests include labor pain relief and clinical outcomes, post-dural puncture headache management, high-risk pregnancy delivery planning and the use of general anesthesia in obstetrics. He has been a member of SOAP since 2014 and is currently a member of several committees and subcommittees, including membership value, diversity and inclusion; and annual meeting curriculum and location and logistics.
Emily Dinges, MD Associate Professor and Program Director Obstetric Anesthesiology Fellowship Dept. Anesthesiology & Pain Medicine University of Washington School of Medicine	Dr. Dinges was born and raised in Oregon, completing her undergrad: University of Portland in Portland, OR. She attended medical school and completed her internship at OHSU (Oregon Health & Science University) in Portland, OR, and completed her residency and OB anesthesia fellowship: University of Washington in Seattle, WA. She currently serves as an Associate Professor and Program Director of Obstetric Anesthesiology Fellowship in the Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, WA. Dr. Dinges also serves as the Chair of Trainee Subcommittee of the Education Committee
Holly Ende, MD Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology Vanderbilt University Medical Center	Dr. Ende is an Associate Professor of Anesthesiology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where she currently serves as Division Chief for Obstetric Anesthesiology and Associate Medical Director of the Vanderbilt Anesthesiology and Perioperative Informatics Research Group. Dr. Ende previously completed both anesthesiology residency and obstetric anesthesiology fellowship at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts and recently completed her Masters in Applied Clinical Informatics at Vanderbilt University. Her academic interests include informatics and predictive analytics, and particularly how we can leverage technology to improve the delivery of personalized medicine in obstetric anesthesia.
Michaela Farber, MD Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School Chief, Division of Obstetric Anesthesia Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine Brigham & Women's Hospital	Dr. Michaela Farber is Chief of the Division of Obstetric Anesthesia at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) and Associate Professor of Anesthesia at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts. Dr. Farber serves on the Massachusetts Maternal Mortality Review Committee for the Department of Public Health. Dr. Farber mentored 56 fellows in her role as BWH fellowship program director for OB anesthesia for 12 years. Dr. Farber recently served on the Society for Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatoloy (SOAP) Board of Directors. She remains actively engaged as Vice Chair of the Education Committee, member of the SOAP Mentoring Academy Subcommittee, and founding member of the SOAP State Representatives initiative. Dr. Farber's research focuses on postpartum hemorrhage management; specifically, postpartum hemorrhage preparedness, national trends, impact of quantitative blood loss and point-of-care coagulation testing, risk assessment models, and pharmacokinetics of tranexamic acid therapy.
Allison J. Lee, MD Associate Professor of Anesthesiology Columbia University	Dr. Lee is an Associate Professor of Anesthesiology at Columbia University, where she is an obstetric anesthesiologist and Medical Director of the Margaret Wood Center for Simulation and Education. At Columbia, she is also the departmental Officer for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, where she has been actively working on a number of initiatives, including implementing training surrounding unconscious bias and upstander response, conducting research into racial and ethnic health disparities, and supporting health career pathway programs for individuals who are from backgrounds that are traditionally underrepresented in medicine. She serves as the Chair of SOAP’s (the Society for Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology) Diversity and Inclusion Committee and is a member of the AUA’s (Association of University Anesthesiologists) Leadership Advisory Board. She is active in both clinical and education research and is very passionate about our role as perioperative physicians in addressing health disparities.
Lisa Leffert, MD Nicholas M Greene Professor and Chair of Anesthesiology at Yale Medical School	Dr. Leffert is the Nicholas M Greene Professor and Chair of Anesthesiology at Yale Medical School in New Haven, CT. She is recent Past President of the Society for Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology (SOAP) and long-time Division Chief of the Obstetric Anesthesia Division at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, MA. Dr. Leffert lectures nationally and internationally on diverse topics such as the anesthetic management of patients with intracranial lesions, strategies for placing neuraxial anesthetics in patients with diverse comorbidities, and the peri-delivery care of patients with substance use disorder and does research on obstetric patients with neurologic disease. She has led an interdisciplinary effort to create a SOAP consensus statements on neuraxial anesthesia in the obstetric patient on thromboprophylaxis and higher dose anticoagulants and thrombocytopenia, worked collaboratively with ASRA on key guidelines, and currently leads the SOAP Consensus and Endorsed Statements subcommittee.
Rebecca Minehart, MD
David Monks, MD Washington University	A UK trained anesthesiologist with a special interest in obstetric anesthesiology. After completing a Master’s in Clinical Investigation at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical medicine he moved to the US to join the faculty at Washington University in Saint Louis in 2018. There he has developed research interests, firstly in oxytocin and more recently in perinatal mood disorders.
Heather Nixon, MD Associate Head of Education Department of Anesthesiology University of Illinois at Chicago	Dr. Heather Nixon is the Associate Head of Education in the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She also serves as the Division Chief of Obstetric Anesthesiology, Fellowship Director for Obstetric Anesthesiology Division and as Director of Obstetric Anesthesiology Resident Rotation. Dr. Nixon received her medical degree at University of Illinois at Chicago in 2006. Dr. Nixon is an American Board of Anesthesiology Diplomat. She has won multiple awards at Teacher of the Year from Society for Obstetric Anesthesiology and Perinatology, American Society of Anesthesiologists and Society of Education in Anesthesia, American Medical Association and University of Illinois at Chicago Department of Anesthesiology.
Greg Palleschi, MD Director of Obstetric Anesthesia for the Central Division of Northwell Health	Dr. Palleschi has been an anesthesiologist in private practice for most of his thirty year career. During that time he served as the Director of Obstetric Anesthesia at two large tertiary care hospitals. Dr. Palleschi transitioned to academic practice in 2022 and now serves as the Director of Obstetric Anesthesia for the Central Division of Northwell Health. He is passionate about obstetric anesthesia and serves on the SOAP Board of Directors as well as other SOAP subcommittees.
Paloma Toledo, MD Chief of Obstetric Anesthesiology University of Miami	Paloma Toledo is the chief of obstetric anesthesiology at the University of Miami. Her research has focused on improving the quality and safety of care for women delivering infants in the United States and reducing peripartum disparities. She is a past chair of the FAER Board of Directors, was the ASA liaison to the ACOG Council on Patient Safety in Women's Healthcare, and her research has been funded by the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities. She is an Executive Editor at Anesthesia & Analgesia.
Thomas T. Klumpner, MD Clinical Associate Professor, Obstetric Anesthesiologist University of Michigan	Tom Klumpner is a Clinical Associate Professor, Obstetric Anesthesiologist and clinical informaticist at the University of Michigan. He is actively involved in a number of departmental and institutional informatics projects, including automation of their maternal early warning system. He is an active SOAP member and serves on the SOAP Annual Meeting and Live Events Committee.
Cynthia Wong, MD Professor, Chair and DEO University of Iowa	Dr. Wong is a Professor of Anesthesia, Chair and DEO of the Department of Anesthesia at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine in Iowa City, Iowa, USA. Dr. Wong is an obstetric anesthesiologist whose research interests revolve around labor analgesia and its effects on the progress of labor and fetal status, epidural labor analgesia, as well as anesthesia for cesarean delivery and postoperative analgesia. She and her group have published several seminal studies that have changed the practice of obstetric anesthesia. Dr. Wong is on the editorial boards of the British Journal of Anaesthesia and is an editor of the International Journal of Obstetric Anesthesia. She has edited several major textbooks, including Chestnut’s Obstetric Anesthesia, Principles and Practice, and has authored multiple book chapters in major anesthesiology and obstetric textbooks. Dr. Wong is also an active educator, lecturing worldwide. She is currently the Chair of the ABA MOCA Minute Committee. Other interests include malignant hyperthermia; she has served as an MH Hotline consultant for many years. She is currently the President-Elect of the Society for Academic Associations of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine (SAAAPM).
Mark Zakowski, MD Professor, Past-President SOAP and California Society of Anesthesiologists Cedars - Sinai Medical Center	Dr. Mark Zakowski has worked in NYC at NYU/Bellevue and in Los Angeles at Cedars-Sinai as an obstetric anesthesiologist, in both academic and private practice settings. He has volunteered over 15,000 hours in professional societies, serving on numerous committees and leadership positions, always a patient advocate at the hospital, state and federal levels. Dr. Zakowski is Chair, ASA Committee on Obstetric Anesthesia, and a past-president for both SOAP and the California Society of Anesthesiologists. He was recently elected to be ASA Alternate Director from California.