2024 - Speakers and Planning Committee

Allison Bissette, Paramedic, BS

Training Captain/Pediatric Emergency Care Coordinator Johnston County Emergency Services & The North Carolina EMSC

Victoria Boggiano, MD MPH

Assistant Professor
UNC Family Medicine Chapel Hill

Victoria Boggiano MD MPH is an Assistant Professor in the UNC Department of Family Medicine, where she has the ability to provide gender affirming care to more than thirty patients in addition to other primary care, obstetrics, pediatrics, and inpatient adult medicine. Originally from Maryland, shewent to college at Dartmouth in New Hampshire, medical school at Stanford,and attended family medicine residency here at UNC. She is thrilled to be presenting with Katherine Croft about gender affirming care at UNC and ways that it has continued to evolve to meet the needs of the community.

Katherine Croft, BSN, RN

Program Manager – Transgender Health Program
UNC Hospitals

Katherine Croft, BSN, RN – Program Manager, UNC Transgender Health Program A former management professional in operations and logistics, Katherine entered the medical profession as her second career by attending the Unviersity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for her Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing. Katherine has worked within the UNC Health System since her graduation, and as of 2019 she became the founder and Program Manager of the UNC Transgender Health Program. The UNC Transgender Health Program has grown rapidly since its inception and now provides comprehensive gender affirming care services to thousands of transgender and non-binary patients throughout the Southeast.

Gregory Edwards A.A.S.

EMS for Children Program Manager
Healthcare Preparedness Program
NC Office of EMS

Stacy Freeman, MS, OTR/L

Occupational Therapist
UNC Hospitals

Stacy Freeman has been an Occupational Therapist for almost 17 years, working at UNC Hospital for the past 9 years. She works 80% of her time on the Trauma/ortho service and 20% on the burn service. She graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill with her undergraduate degrees in Exercise & Sport Science and Psychology and from Colorado State University with her Master’s degree in Occupational Therapy. She has worked in acute care, inpatient, outpatient and skilled nursing settings but enjoys acute care and specifically the trauma/burn populations the most.

Jared Gallaher, MD, MPH

Assistant Professor of Surgery
UNC Department of Surgery

Jared Gallaher, MD, MPH, FACS is an Assistant Professor of Surgery in the Division of General and Acute Care Surgery at UNC in Chapel Hill, NC. He also has an adjunct appointment in the UNC Gilings School of Global Public Health and co-teaches a course there each spring on cost-effectiveness analysis. Dr. Gallaher graduated from Wake Forest School of Medicine in 2011 and completed his MPH at UNC Gilings School of Global Public Health in 2016. After finishing his General Surgery Residency at UNC in 2018, he completed his Surgical Critical Care Fellowship at Oregon Health Sciences University in 2019 and then returned to UNC to join the faculty in the Department of Surgery. His research focuses on global health in Malawi, especially in the fields of trauma, general surgery, and burn, and he serves as the co-director of the Malawi Surgical Initiative at UNC. He has also published clinical research on trauma and ECMO in the United States.

Tracy Gould, Paramedic

Paramedic
Alamance County EMS

Haili Gregory, PharmD, BCPS, BCEMP

Pediatric Emergency Medicine Clinical Pharmacy Specialist
UNC Hospitals

Haili Gregory, PharmD, BCPS, BCEMP is a clinical specialist in pediatric emergency medicine at UNC Health Medical Center. She received her Doctor of Pharmacy degree in Utah then completed her PGY1 pharmacy residency at Intermountain Healthcare followed by a specialty residency in emergency medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina. She then worked for four years with UF Health Shands Hospital’s Emergency Medicine adult and pediatric teams before coming to UNC to work with the pediatric Emergency Medicine team.

James P. Ho, MD

Assistant Professor
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

William C. Mauney, BS, EMT-Paramedic

Deputy Director
Alamance County Emergency Management

Major John McClellan, MD

Assistant Professor UNC School of medicine, Division of Acute Care & Trauma
Major, US Army Medical Corps

Dr. McClellan is a graduate of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and joined UNC in 2023 as part of the military-civilian partnership that integrates Army surgeons into civilian academic centers.

Prior to that he served in faculty roles at the University of Washington School of Medicine Department of Surgery, Division of Trauma, Burn, and Critical Care Surgery (Seattle, WA) and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (Bethesda, MD). He completed his Surgical Critical Care Fellowship and Burn Certification at Harborview Medical Center, Seattle, WA .

He is Co-Editor and Founder of Behind the Knife, a surgical podcast turned educational platform that is continuing to provide excellent educational resources for trainees and lifelong learners.

Samuel Meroney, BS, NRP

Paramedic
Orange County Emergency Services

Sam Meroney currently works for Orange County Emergency Services as a paramedic. Besides being a paramedic for close to 3.5 years in Orange County, Sam has an additional 3 years of EMT-Basic experience before that as a lieutenant for the South Orange Rescue Squad. Sam is also a level 1 paramedic instructor for the state of NC and teaches the paramedic class locally at Durham Technical Community College.

Abd-El-Barr Muhammad, MD, PhD, FAANS

Associate Professor
Duke University, Department of Neurosurgery

Dr. Abd-El-Barr received his undergraduate degree in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Toronto, Canada. He received his Master’s in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. He received his MD and PhD degrees from Baylor College of Medicine. His PhD was in Neuroscience with an emphasis on Neurophysiology of Vision.

Dr. Abd-El-Barr completed his Neurosurgery Residency from Brigham and Women’s/Boston Children’s Hospitals/Harvard Medical School. He completed a Spine fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Abd-El-Barr currently is an Associate Professor of Neurosurgery/Orthopedic Surgery and Spine Fellowship Co-Director at Duke University Medical Center. His clinical practice revolves around minimally-invasive spine surgery, including awake and endoscopic spine surgeries. His research is basic, translational and clinical. His basic science research revolves around novel treatments for spinal cord injury. His translational and clinical research revolves around novel minimally-invasive techniques including next-generation imaging, robotics and augmented reality.

When not operating or doing research, Dr. Abd-El-Barr likes to spend time with his wife, who is also a physician-scientist and their 3 children who are avid basketball players.

Paul Ossman, MD, MPH

Associate Professor of Internal Medicine/Geriatric Provider Liaison for the UNC Trauma Program
UNC School of Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Hospital Medicine

As a graduate of the UNC SOM and from the UNC Internal Medicine Residency program, Paul has been an active practicing hospitalist at UNC Ch-Hill since 2009. He completed further training in geriatrics as a Reynolds Grant Scholar and now serves as the Geriatric Provider Liaison for the UNC Trauma Program.

Dr. Ossman’s clinical interests include integrating geriatric medicine and palliative care medicine into the continuing education of hospitalists as well as educating on caring for patients with comorbid personality disorders. As an educator, Dr. Ossman has been a guest lecturer on communication to both undergraduates as well as new nursing graduates and has given talks about “difficult patients” to multiple medical groups and nursing cohorts. He also is an active member in the UNC Hospital Ethics committee where he has been a lead consultant since 2009 and continues to educate clinicians and residents across departments in clinical bioethics.

Dan Park, MD, MBA

Medical Director, Pediatric Emergency Department
UNC Hospitals

Dr. Dan Park, MD, MBA is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Pediatric Emergency Medicine. He serves as the Medical Director of the Pediatric Emergency Department. He was fellowship trained in Pediatric Emergency Medicine and Emergency Ultrasound at the Medical University of South Carolina, he completed pediatric residency at Yale, and received his medical degree from The Medical College of Virginia. He also received an MBA from UNC Pembroke. Dr. Park is a nationally recognized expert in pediatric point of care ultrasound. Over the past few years, he has shifted his focus to improving operations in the Pediatric Emergency Department. He serves on the Fixed Term Promotions Committee for the UNC School of Medicine and Co-chairs the ASAP workgroup that oversees optimization of Epic for Emergency Departments across the UNC Health System. He lives in Chapel Hill with his three daughters and wife who is a Pediatric Cardiologist at Duke.

Renee Potter, BSN, MBA

UNC Hospitals

Renee Potter has 26 years of nursing experience with a primary focus initially on cardiac critical care and the last 14 years in comprehensive stroke center (CSC) program management. Intermittent stroke surveyor for the joint commission. Started at UNC in October 2022 as the Stroke Program Manager. I am from Fort Worth, Texas; go Cowboys! Hobbies include reading, action movies, and travel when time allows.

Christopher Purvis, EMT-Paramedic

Assistant shift supervisor
Alamance County EMS

Johanna Quist-Nelson, MD

Assistant Professor
Division of Maternal Fetal Medicine
UNC Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology
UNC School of Medicine

Selwyn O Rogers Jr., MD, MPH

University of Chicago Medicine

Selwyn Rogers, Jr., MD, MPH, FACS, was named the Section Chief of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery at the University of Chicago Medicine in January 2017. He now serves as the Dr. James E. Bowman, Jr. Professor in the Biological Sciences at The University of Chicago Medicine. Dr. Rogers is an acclaimed trauma and critical care surgeon and public health expert who has served in leadership capacities at health centers across the country. His work seeks to improve quality and access to care for all patients and advocate for treating intentional violence as a public health problem.

Christopher Saul, BS

Director
Alamance County Emergency Management

E. Reed Smith, MD, FACEP, FAEMS

Operational Medical Director
Arlington County (VA) Fire and Police Departments

Dr. Smith is currently the Operational Medical Director for the Arlington County (VA) Fire and Police Departments, an Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at the George Washington University School of Medicine, and an attending physician at the Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, VA. He attended medical school at the Georgetown University, completed his residency training in Emergency Medicine at the George Washington University, and has spent the last 12 years developing training and programs to address regional emergency preparedness and operational gaps in the National Capital Region.
As faculty, he was the Program Director for the George Washington University Emergency Health Services program and then led the Division of Special Operations Medicine where he oversaw the development of unique custom educational programs and medical operations for civilian and military special operations teams. In his current position as OMD for Arlington County, he oversees all medical operations, provider education, QA and medical protocols, and has developed new programs including unique operational EMS sub-specialty teams and was one of the original architects of Rescue Task Force, an innovative pre-hospital response to active violence and explosive scenarios. Dr. Smith frequently presents at national and international medical conferences and delivers training to many groups ranging from tactical to operational to hospital-based. Most recently, he co-founded and now co-chairs the non-profit Committee for Tactical Emergency Casualty Care to facilitate medical knowledge transfer from combat to civilian use, and is co-developing the Arlington County High Threat program. Reed is a former EMS provider and Navy Corpsman and has strong interests in Operational & Tactical Medicine.

Jennifer Turley, PT, DPT

Physical Therapist
UNC Hospitals

Jennifer Turley has been a physical therapist at UNC Hospital for 13 years. She is a Clinical Specialist and has focused on trauma patients and ICU patients during her time at UNC. She has also collaborated with the UNC PT school to teach TBI lectures, SCI lectures and labs, and presented at PT Grand Rounds.

Kylee Wiemer

Certified Child Life Specialist
UNC Hospitals