Presenters
Maureen George, PhD, AE-C, RN, FAAN
Optimal Inhaler Selection: Environmental Considerations and Patient Preferences
Maureen George, PhD, RN, AE-C, FAAN is Professor of Nursing at Columbia University School of Nursing, Assistant Dean for Scholarship & Research, and Director of the PhD Program. Dr. George has an ongoing program of research funded by the National Institute of Health focused on the use of a brief shared decision-making intervention to improve asthma outcomes in federally qualified health centers in both adult and adolescent populations. A 2022 administrative supplement extends this work to indoor air quality measurements in New York City apartments to contextualize uncontrolled asthma in residential housing. In 2022, she was reappointed to the United Nations Environmental Program’s Medical Technical Options Committee which prepares assessments for the Parties of the Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer. She received a Fulbright US Scholars research award in April 2023 to adapt her shared decision making interventions to a well population in Trinidad and Tobago.
Mackenzie T. Petersen, MPH-MSW
Emergent Workforce Trends that Improve Health Equity Among Underserved Communities
Mackenzie Petersen, MPH-MSW is the Project Director for the Community Health Worker Training Program HRSA grant. She has over 15 years of professional experience working with communities to improve health and reduce disparities. Mackenzie loves to develop creative solutions and change systems with the expertise of stakeholders and people with lived experience. Before joining the Center for Children, Families, and Workforce Development, Mackenzie worked for almost five years at the Department of Public Health and Human Services as a section supervisor for behavioral health services in Medicaid and Children’s Health Services in Public Health. In these roles, she developed and improved partnerships with key partner organizations to dismantle silos and improve collaboration. Before moving to Montana, Mackenzie worked in Population Health at a Coordinated Care Organization in Oregon and at a downtown shelter service provider in Portland. A former Peace Corps volunteer, Mackenzie spends her free time with her family, dallying in tree planting and ceramics.
Kate Chapin, MSW, LCSW
Emergent Workforce Trends that Improve Health Equity Among Underserved Communities
Kate Chapin, MSW, LCSW, serves as Executive Director for the University of Montana Center for Children, Families, and Workforce Development. As director, Kate leads a team of 30 researchers, educators, social workers, and public health professionals dedicated to improving care systems for Montana’s children and families. This work is achieved through research & evaluation, technical assistance & capacity building, and workforce training & development. Kate has served as the lead evaluator for statewide projects, including the Zero Suicide in Health Systems Implementation grant, PAX Good Behavior Game, and the Innovations Grant. Previously, she was Director of Field Education and Clinical Faculty for the University of Montana School of Social Work.
Bethany Lussier, MD, FCCP
Practical Approach to Transition of Patients with Chronic Restrictive Lung Disease and Alveolar Hypoventilation Syndromes to Home Ventilation
Bethany Lussier, MD, FCCP graduated from Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in 2009, completed an Internal Medicine Residency at Stamford Hospital, Columbia University NY Presbyterian Systems, followed by a Pulmonary and Critical Care Clinical and Research Fellowship Program at Boston University in 2016. She subsequently moved to Dallas, Texas to complete a fellowship in Neurocritical Care in 2017 before joining as faculty in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine and the Division of Neurological Critical Care at UT Southwestern Medical Center. During her tenure, Dr. Lussier joined the UT Southwestern Sleep and Breathing Disorders group as a home ventilation and neuromuscular pulmonary expert and subsequently developed a Home Ventilation/ Neuromuscular Pulmonology Clinic at Parkland Health and Hospital System. She is the current director of the Parkland Hospital Medical Intensive Care Unit and leads the education and research efforts in both the intensive care units and the home ventilation sector. Dr. Lussier is actively engaged in clinical research in the medical and neurological intensive care units, and the home ventilation clinics. Her special interests are in diaphragm paralysis, ventilation in neuromuscular disease, ventilatory complications during pregnancy in patients with neuromuscular disease, and advocacy for patients with disability.
Jeff Wilson, MD
Jeff Wilson, MD - As a clinician-educator in the Pulmonary/Critical Care Medicine division my focus has consistently been on teaching and providing exemplary patient care. Early in my career I was fortunate to be able to represent our institution (PI) as a clinical site for the NIH sponsored Alpha-1-Antitrypsin (A1AT) Deficiency Registry – a five year descriptive study of patients with severe A1AT deficiency, both on and off A1AT augmentation therapy. We enrolled ~35 individuals in this registry - which provided the first clinical data supporting the efficacy of replacing the A1AT protein in severely deficient individuals. The University of Iowa subsequently became a A1AT Clinical Resource Center and has served as a referral destination for patients with this condition. I currently see ~30-40 patients with the ZZ phenotype in my clinic – and many others with less severely deficient phenotypes. We sponsor a yearly meeting of the Iowa A1AT Deficiency Patient Support Group here at UIHC – bringing in liver and lung transplant experts to provide education and answer their questions.
Alan Kaplan, MD, CCFP(EM), FCFP, CPC(HC)
Artificial Intelligence in Respiratory Medicine
Alan Kaplan, MD, CCFP(EM), FCFP, CPC(HC) is a Family Physician practicing in Aurora, Ontario, Canada. He is the Chairperson of the Family Physician Airways Group of Canada. Alan is involved in multiple respiratory initiatives both locally and internationally as a Senate member of the International Primary Care Respiratory Group, a Member of the Health Canada Section on Allergy and Respiratory Therapies. He has authored 219 newsletter articles, 166 peer reviewed articles, and 130 conference abstracts.
Jeritt Thayer, MS
EHR Embedded Clinical Decision Support for Respiratory Care
Jeritt Thayer, MS is a Software Engineer in the Clinical Decision Support unit of the Department of Biomedical and Health Informatics at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Jeritt's work focuses on the development of novel technology and methodological frameworks to facilitate advanced models of care delivery aimed at improving health and health care. He has developed several electronic health record (EHR) embedded clinical decision support systems and advises multiple healthcare companies on EHR integration efforts. He holds a Master's degree in Biomedical Informatics and a BA in Mathematics from New York University.
Deborah Morris-Harris, PhD, MD, EMBA, FIDSA
Pulmonary Presentations of HIV in Immunocompromised and Immune Competent Hosts
Deborah Morris-Harris, PhD, MD, EMBA, FIDSA is a primary care provider of services to patients who are at risk or currently HIV infected. She began her professional career as a neurobiologist receiving her PhD from Yale University. Following her tenure there, Deborah pursued doctor of medicine at Harvard Medical School where she was deeply intrigued by what was then a burgeoning field of population health. This field would later go on to describe the behavior of patients that may contribute to their disease processes. She treated patients early in the HIV epidemic who came from diverse backgrounds.
Today, Deborah is very interested in promoting awareness of the risk factors for immunosuppression.
Rohit Katial, MD
Severe Persistent Asthma Therapeutics: The New Landscape
Rohit Katial, MD is a Professor of Medicine at National Jewish Health and the University of Colorado. He is the Associate Vice President of Education, Director for the Center for Clinical Immunology and the Irene J. & Dr. Abraham E. Goldminz, Chair in Immunology and Respiratory Medicine. Rohit received his undergraduate and medical degrees from Georgetown University. Dr. Rohit has an international reputation in airway and eosinophilic diseases. He has numerous original publications, as well as edited and authored many book chapters. He is board certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine, American Board of Allergy & Immunology with specialty certification in Clinical Laboratory Immunology. Rohit is a Fellow of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, a Fellow of the American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, as well as a Fellow of the American College of Physicians.
Katy Bosio, PhD
How Obesity Impacts Pulmonary Immune Responses to Powerful Zoonotic Pathogens
Katy Bosio, PhD graduated from Washington State University cum laude with a B.Sc. in 1993. Following completion of her Ph.D. at Colorado State University in 1998, Dr. Bosio completed postdoctoral fellowships at the Food and Drug Administration Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research and at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases, studying innate immunity to Mycobacterium tuberculosis, F. tularensis, Marburg virus, and Ebola virus. Prior to joining NIAID in 2007, Dr. Bosio was an assistant professor at Colorado State University in the department of microbiology, immunology, and pathology. Dr. Bosio’s laboratory studies the host response to pulmonary pathogens, with special emphasis on virulent F. tularensis and dendritic cells, macrophages, monocytes, and how metabolic flux plays a role in lung diseases.
Gregory LeMense, MD, FCCP
Lung Cancer: Detection, Diagnosis and Treatment
Gregory LeMense, MD, FCCP earned his medical degree from Vanderbilt University in 1989, and completed his training in Pulmonary/Critical Care Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina in 1995. After practicing Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine for 24 years in several locations in Tennessee, he moved to Bozeman, MT in 2019. He is now the Clinic Lead for Outpatient Pulmonary Medicine and Interventional Pulmonology as well as the director of the Lung Nodule Program at Bozeman Health.
Kym McNicholas, Founder/CEO/Patient Advocate
Breathing Life into Your Limbs: How to Catch a Silent Killer!
Kym McNicholas is an Emmy Award-winning journalist who started The Way To My Heart after covering a story in which she was not satisfied with the ending. The story began with travel around the world over the last five years to nearly a dozen countries and more than two dozen states to cover the FDA Clearance process & global commercialization of what some told her could be a game-changing device in unblocking arteries. During her journey, Kym observed thousands of hours of procedures in which Vascular Specialists used multiple methods to unblock arteries in legs and heart, interviewed hundreds of doctors and patients, and met with dozens of medical device-makers, as well as hospital and office-based lab/ambulatory surgery center administrators. Through that experience she discovered many heart attacks, strokes, and amputations are preventable with early diagnosis and appropriate treatment, which includes the use of advanced tools and techniques. That’s when she decided to create a nonprofit focused on education, high-touch advocacy, and real-time support for P.A.D. patients around the world to help them navigate the healthcare system throughout their P.A.D. journey so they could live a better quality of life.