Our Team and Experts

Our Team and Experts have been working in patient safety for years. TMIT Global, our founding organization at www.SafetyLeaders.org and www.GlobalPatientSafetyForum.org has operated the longest running and largest patient safety community of practice in the world where most of our team and experts have served. In 2020, it has started its second decade of delivering monthly webinars, producing broadcast films, and undertaking R&D. New team members including college leaders, Emergency Medical Technicians, and Lifeguards.

Gregory H. Botz, MD, FCCM
Professor of Anesthesiology and Critical Care
UT – MD Anderson Cancer Center
Adjunct Clinical Associate Professor,
Department Anesthesiology
Stanford University Medical School
Houston, TX

Gregory H. Botz, MD, FCCM, is a Professor of Anesthesiology and Critical Care at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. He inspired initial focus of the team on active shooter events, and it was his continuous inspiration that led to the development of Med Tac. It was also his inspiration and idea to develop the CARE Huddle Checklist. He is the lead clinical content expert for the Med Tac program. He is a recipient of The Pete Conrad Patient Safety Award, recognizing these individual contributions to the Med Tac Program and his leadership service to the team.

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He received his medical degree from The George Washington University School of Medicine in Washington, DC. He completed an internship in internal medicine at Huntington Memorial Hospital, and then completed an anesthesiology residency and critical care medicine fellowship at Stanford University in California. He has served on the faculty at Duke University School of Medicine, and is an Adjunct Clinical Associate Professor of Anesthesia at Stanford University School of Medicine. Dr. Botz is a 2004 graduate of the Intermountain Healthcare Advanced Training Program in Health Care Delivery Improvement. He is a member of the steering committee and faculty for the MD Anderson Clinical Safety and Effectiveness training program, and a Charter Fellow in Clinical Safety and Effectiveness for the UT System. He has served as the University of Texas Chancellor’s Health Fellow in Quality of Care and Patient Safety.Dr. Botz is currently the medical director of the Simulation Center and Code Blue Team Operations. He was previously medical director of the ICU, Transfer Center, Acute Care Training Center, and the Medical Emergency Rapid Intervention Team. As a clinician-educator, Dr. Botz serves as regional faculty for the American Heart Association Emergency Cardiovascular Care training programs, and he is a national consultant for the Society of Critical Care Medicine training programs. He was a senior editor for the American Board of Anesthesiology Joint Council on Anesthesiology Examinations, program director for the UTHSC-Houston Anesthesiology Critical Care Medicine Fellowship, and a member of The University of Texas System Health Care Components ICU Quality Improvement Collaborative. He has participated in SCCM education programs in collaboration with the Japanese Society of Intensive Care Medicine, the Saudi Critical Care Society, the Indian Society of Critical Care Medicine, and the Association of Intensive Medicine in Brazil (AMIB). Dr. Botz has collaborated with the Saudi Critical Care Society and the Saudi Commission for Health Specialties in the creation of a critical care medicine residency program, and served as an external board examiner for the Saudi Critical Care Medicine Board Examinations.

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C. R. Denham, II, MD
CEO, HCC Corporation
Chairman, TMIT
Austin, TX

Dr. Denham is the founder of CareUniversity which is the delivery system for the Med Tac Certificate Program which his development team funded and produced. Together with Dr. Gregory Botz and Chief William Adcox of MD Anderson Cancer Center, he is developing and testing the Med Tac innovations. He is a 2018 Pete Conrad Global Patient Safety Award winner for co-founding Med Tac and his role in pioneering the program for schools, churches, and scout groups. During his career spanning 35 years, he and his organizations have served hundreds of innovation teams. While in practice as a radiation oncologist, he taught biomedical engineering and product development. He has taught innovation adoption, technology transfer, and commercialization in both academia and industry.

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He has been an adjunct Professor of Health Engineering at the Mayo Clinic Medical School and had teaching appointments as an Instructor at the Harvard School of Public Health and as a Lecturer with the faculty of Harvard Medical School. He was a Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative Fellow in 2009 and a Senior Fellow in 2010 and 2011. His work there led to the production of a series of global documentaries on the Discovery Channel. He has served as Editor-in-Chief of the global Journal of Patient Safety, and has more than 100 works including peer-reviewed papers and multimedia productions. He has been ranked in the top 50 Most Influential Physician Executives by Modern Healthcare in multiple years, and he has served as a regular columnist for the Wall Street Journal program The Experts: Journal Reports. He is an advisor to and collaborator with a number of Stanford University programs. Dr. Denham is a PADI Certified Rescue Diver, scout leader, and Stop the Bleed instructor with the American College of Surgeons program. He is a American Heart Association CPR/AED Instructor and has undertaken extensive wilderness first aid training with the American Red Cross. He has extensive aviation safety experience having been a private jet pilot, owned an aircraft manufacturing company with a global fleet, and operated air ambulance and charter services.

He founded HCC Corporation, a for-profit innovation incubator, and TMIT, a non-profit medical research organization, in the early ‘80s; the companies work collaboratively on common innovation programs. CareUniversity, focused on continuing education of consumers and caregivers is the delivery system for MedTac which is one of these global initiatives in development. His current research and development work is in the area of Threat Safety Science focused on reducing preventable harm to families, caregivers, and institutions. His focus in communities is bystander care through Med Tac. His focus in healthcare institutions is caregiver harm and patient safety including insider threats including fraud and outsider threats including workplace violence.

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John J. Nance, JD
Best-selling Author and Pilot
Journalist and Patient Safety Expert
Leadership Educator and Champion
Editor-in-Chief Red Cover Reports
Friday Harbor, WA

John J. Nance is a lawyer, former airline captain and Air Force pilot, broadcast and print investigative journalist,prolific internationally-published author, and one of the leading patient safety experts in the world. His mission is to help doctors, administrators, boards, and front-line staff alike ethically survive and prosper during the most profoundly challenging upheaval in the history of modern medicine.

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One of the founders of the National Patient Safety Foundation in 1997, his efforts (and healthcare publications) are dedicated to reforming American healthcare from a reactive cottage industry to an honorable, effective, and safe system of prevention and wellness. He earned his bachelor’s degree and a Juris Doctor degree from SMU, and is still a licensed Texas attorney. Named Distinguished Alumnus of SMU for 2002, and distinguished Alumnus for Public Service of the SMU Dedman School of Law in 2010, he is also a decorated Air Force pilot and veteran of Vietnam and Operations Desert Storm/Desert Shield, and a Lieutenant Colonel in the USAF Reserve, well-known for his pioneering development of Air Force human factors flight safety education, and one of the civilian pioneers of Crew Resource Management (CRM). He is best known to North American television audiences as a current Aviation Analyst for ABC World News and Aviation Editor for Good Morning America. He is the author of the book Why Hospitals Should Fly and a co-author of Charting the Course and Ending Nurse-to-Nurse Hostility: Why Nurses Eat their Young and Each Other. Mr. Nance is founder of the series Red Cover Reports for patient safety built on the concepts of the NTSB reports, pilots call “Blue Cover Reports”. TheseRed Cover Reports are global broadcast programs and print reports that target harm to patients and caregivers from medical error and ethical misbehavior. He is a subject matter expert for the Emerging Threats Community of Practice and the Healthcare Innocence Project that is dedicated to protect and rescue caregivers and patients from the impact of medical error and unethical behaviors using digital DNA of electronic records. Mr. Nance is a subject matter expert for Med Tac in the areas of patient safety, legal, and risk management.

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William Adcox, MBA
Chief of Police and Chief Security Officer
MD Anderson
Cancer Center and The University of Texas
Health Science Center, Houston, TX

Chief William H. Adcox is a national leader in threat solutions development and threat safety science. It was his advisory input to the team that allowed them to expand their focus to the top seven causes of death of otherwise healthy people which is now the target of the Med Tac program. Without his mentorship, there would be no Med Tac program as it exists today. His continuous support of the Med Tac team is substantial, and he is a key contributor on national education programs and R&D with healthcare safety leaders.

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The Med Tac Law Enforcement program has been pioneered by Chief Adcox at the MD Anderson Cancer Center. The Pete Conrad Global Patient Safety Award recognizes these individual contributions to the Med Tac Program and his leadership service to the team. With 37 years in municipal and campus policing, he serves as the Chief of Police and CSO at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and The University of Texas Health Science Center. He has hundreds of team members keeping more than 20,000 caregivers, educators, and students safe. Chief Adcox holds an MBA degree from UTEP and is a graduate of the PERF’s Senior Management Institute for Police and the Wharton School ASIS Program for Security Executives. He is the recipient of the IACLEA’s 2013 Award for Administrative Excellence and was named by Security Magazine as one of the “Most Influential People in Security 2013.” The agency received the IHSS Foundation’s prestigious 2015 Lindberg Bell Distinguished Program Award. Nationally, Chief Adcox received the Campus Safety 2015 Director of the Year Award in Healthcare; and locally he received the Texas Police Chiefs Association’s 2015 Leadership Award.

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Charlie Denham, III
Middle School Student
Founder of Med Tac Scouts Program
Junior Med Tac Instructor
Laguna Beach, CA

Charlie Denham is a middle school student who lives in California. As a Cub Scout he aspired to undertake an Eagle Project before becoming a boy scout that led to Med Tac for scouts. He and his father developed and tested the program with his own Cub Scout den and the CARE Huddle Checklist with his flag football team. They verified that the knowledge about high impact care hazards and bystander lifeline behaviors can be learned by children.

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Charlie is a 2018 Pete Conrad Global Patient Safety Award winner for co-founding Med Tac and his role in pioneering the program for schools, churches, and scout groups after presenting the program at an innovation summit at the NASA Kennedy Space Center. Charlie is commonly seen in the Med Tac training videos designed to reach his age group. He has learned the value of Bystander Care through the experiences he has had during Junior Life Guard training and his avid participation in competitive climbing and fencing, flag football, surfing, and on Scout adventures. He is participating on the multi-generational Med Tac team on development of its programs. He is the lead Junior Instructor for the Med Tac Lifeguard-Surf Program. Charlie is a certified Advanced Open Water SCUBA Diver and has undertaken the rigorous training and earned his PADI Rescue Diver Certification in order to help develop the Med Tac Diver Program. He is one of the youngest certified rescue divers in the country. As co-founder of Med Tac, he has had the opportunity as a junior instructor to teach at Stanford University, in his own school, and scouting community.

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Casey Clements, MD, PhD
Consultant Physician
Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, MN

Casey Clements, MD, PhD, is a Consultant Physician and Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Carrying both a medical doctorate and a PhD in microbiology and immunology, he has worked for several years in acute and critical care research.

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Now, serving as Practice Chair for emergency medicine, he works on interdepartmental and interdisciplinary practice improvements focusing on implementation of evidence-based medicine. He also serves as the director for behavioral health in the ED and works throughout the Mayo Clinic on violence mitigation and patient and staff safety. He has been a substantial contributor to webinars educating the patient safety community of practice hosted by TMIT Global at www.SafetyLeaders.org and is the team lead for the Med Tac program which will be launched in Rochester Minnesota in 2020.

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Vicki King, MSCJ
Inspector, Threat Assessment Unit
University of Texas Police at Houston

Inspector Vicki King is a leading expert in the science of threat management and mitigation. Her special contribution to Med Tac has been in a number of areas including focus on de-escalation of threats before something harmful happens. She is a rising star in threat safety science. During her 30-year career, she served 27 years with the Houston Police Department, rising to the rank of Assistant Chief and earning a master’s degree in Criminal Justice.

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As Chief of Detectives, Tactical Support Commander, and Director of Forensic Services, she oversaw some of HPD’s highest-profile cases, including serial homicides, corruption, domestic violence, sexual assaults, and gangland slayings. After retiring from HPD, Inspector King served as an emissary to the Saudi Royal family; as an adjunct professor for the University of Houston system; and as Chief of Police for the City of La Marque. MD Anderson and UT-Health recruited Inspector King to head up their Threat Assessment Unit. In her new role, Inspector King works with multidisciplinary teams to identify and mitigate risks.

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Christopher R. Peabody, MD, MPH
Emergency Physician
Assistant Clinical Professor of Emergency Medicine,
University of California San Francisco
Clinical Instructor, University of California San Francisco
San Francisco, CA

Christopher R. Peabody, MD, MPH, is a practicing Emergency Physician in California and Clinical Instructor at the University of California, San Francisco. He is the lead clinical contributor to Emergency Medicine topics so vital to Med Tac and CareUniversity. The first 10 minutes after an injury or emergency incident are vital as are the interactions with Emergency Medical Services (EMS) and then Emergency Physicians who receive the patients.

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He is a substantial contributor to this vital survival chain and the leadership, best practices, and technologies that can optimize these processes. He is also the Director of the UCSF Acute Care Innovation Center, an initiative of the UCSF Department of Emergency Medicine, which develops novel ways to deliver Emergency and Acute Care reliably and safely by developing new technology and validating best practices. He has a strong commitment to public service and healthcare delivery to vulnerable populations. Dr. Peabody completed his residency at one of the busiest safety-net hospitals in the country, Los Angeles County Hospital, and was the Chief Resident in Emergency Medicine at the University of Southern California. He attended medical school at the University of California San Francisco, and completed an MPH at Harvard University on a Zuckerman Fellowship. Dr. Peabody’s current interests lie in quality improvement and patient safety, especially related to underserved populations. He has extensive experience in emergency care and disaster response internationally, having served in Haiti and China. He is a member of the content leadership development team for CareUniversity and applies his expertise in emergency care, public health, and international healthcare performance improvement to meeting the needs of both consumers and caregivers.

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Gladstone C. McDowell, II, MD
Medical Director, Integrated Pain Solutions
Director TMIT
Columbus, OH

Dr. Gladstone McDowell is a nationally renowned pain management physician who is board certified in urology, anesthesia, and pain management. His fellowship studies at MD Anderson Cancer Center in urologic oncology give him a special understanding of complex pain issues. One of the Med Tac High Impact Care Hazards is Opioid Overdoses, and Dr. McDowell provides special expertise on the Med Tac Team in this area.

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He also has experience teaching high school students about drug addiction and avoidance of risks. He has contributed to the development of The 5 Rights of Pain Care program in development with CareUniversity. He is a Director of TMIT and serves on the Global Innovations Team of the Global Patient Safety Forum. He is the Medical Director of Integrated Pain Solutions. He is a trained specialist in urology, urologic oncology, anesthesiology, pain management, and patient safety. He has served as an instructor at The University of Ohio for both the Department of Urology and the Department of Surgery. He has also served as the Director of Sabine Urology Outpatient Clinic and the Chief of Urology at Breckenridge Hospital in Austin, TX. Dr. McDowell has been involved in breakthrough research at the Gynecology Clinic of the Southwest Foundation for Research and Development, and at the Department of Cell Biology at The University of Texas’ M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.

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Perry S. Bechtle, III
Student
University of Florida
College Program Leader
Eagle Scout Mentor
Gainesville, FL

Perry S. Bechtle, III is a college student at the University of Florida, an Eagle Scout and a one of the leaders of the Med Tac Certificate Course program for scouts and college students. He is a leader and co-founder of the Med Tac Eagle Network. This program will provide the training and support for Eagle Scout candidates who launch a Med Tac program for a school, faith-based institution, or scout organization.

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He is the first Med Tac Master Instructor in the country and has extensive experience in ocean rescue. He is a certified American College of Surgeons Stop the Bleed Instructor and Heartsaver CPR/AED Instructor with the American Heart Association. He is a 2018 Pete Conrad Global Patient Safety Award winner for his role in development of the College Med Tac Curriculum founding and launching the Med Tac program at the University of Florida. A lifeguard and avid surfer, he is working with the team in development of the Med Tac Lifeguard-Surf Program. He is a licensed pilot and pre-medical student. He is the President of HEROES, a Pre-Med Pre-Health Career organization at the University of Florida. Perry launched the Med Tac College Program there. He is working with leading caregivers and law enforcement leaders in the continuous improvement of the Med Tac program. He is also assisting in the development of a Boy Scout Merit Badge focused on advanced bystander care through Med Tac. Perry was one of the first college instructors having helped launch the program at Stanford University. He has been an instructor at the Orange County program in collaboration the OC Boy Scout Council.

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Thomas Zeltner, MD
Expert Leader in Public Health
Former Special Envoy of the Director General
of the World Health Organization
Former Secretary of State for Health and Director-General
of the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health (1991-2009)
Bern, Switzerland

Thomas Zeltner, MD, is an international expert leader in public health and health system development. He provides input on global health issues to Med Tac and CareUniversity. He was a 2010 Fellow of the Advanced Leadership Initiative of Harvard University. He is co-founder of the Global Patient Safety Forum, a convening organization of the world’s leading patient safety organizations, and a Managing Editor of the Journal of Patient Safety.

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He advises international organizations and national governments in health policies and health policy reforms. He has served as Special Envoy in financing for WHO. In this capacity, he advised the Director General of WHO on the identification of an improved financing framework for the Organization. He served as Special Envoy of WHO, advising the Director General in critical areas of the current reform of this UN agency (how to cooperate with non-State actors such as NGOs and organizations in the private sector without compromising WHO’s integrity, and how to better align WHO’s priorities with the resources available to finance them). He is a member of the Global Agenda Council on Digital Health of the World Economic Forum (WEF).

Dr. Zeltner is president of Blood Transfusion CRS Switzerland, the organization in charge of securing Switzerland’s provision with blood and blood products. He is a board member of the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences and President of Science-et-Cité. Since 1992, he has been Professor of Public Health at the University of Bern, Switzerland.

From 1991 to 2009, Dr. Zeltner was the Director-General of the Federal Office of Public Health of Switzerland, the National Health and Public Health Authority and Secretary of State for Health. In this function he was a key actor in Swiss health policy and represented Switzerland in many international health organizations.

He graduated with an MD and a master’s degree in law from the University of Bern. He holds a specialist degree in human pathology and forensic medicine.

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Perry S. Bechtle, DO
Anesthesiologist, Mayo Clinic
Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology
Mayo Clinic College of Medicine
Jacksonville, FL

Dr. Perry S. Bechtle is a neuroanesthesiologist at Mayo Clinic in Florida and provides expertise to Med Tac drawing on his clinical career, experience in patient safety, and high performance aviation best practices from his experience as a member of the Blue Angels. At the Mayo Clinic in Florida, he served as the Division Chairman of Neuroanesthesiology from 1997 to 2010.

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He also serves as the Patient Safety Officer and quality leader within the Department of Anesthesiology, and he is a Mayo Quality Fellow and the Medical Director of the Interventional MRI (IMRIS) neurosurgical suite. Prior to joining Mayo Clinic, he was a U.S. Naval flight surgeon for five years, then completed anesthesiology residency training at Mayo Clinic in Florida and a neuroanesthesia fellowship at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN.

Dr. Bechtle’s experience in other high-consequence industries includes being the flight surgeon for the U.S. Navy Flight Demonstration Squadron, the Blue Angels, from 1992 to 1994; work as a subcontractor at NASA Johnson Space Center Medical Operations in Houston and as Safety Coordinator at one of the Space Shuttle East coast alternate landing sites at MCAS Cherry Point, NC; and employment as Space Shuttle launch and recovery physician with the Department of Defense Division for Manned Space Flight at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. He has been a consultant to Medtronic Xomed, primarily assisting with health hazard evaluation and failure mode effects analysis on a variety of products.

With a technical background in industrial safety and aviation safety, and a career which still includes daily work in the neurosurgical operating rooms of Mayo Clinic in Florida, Dr. Perry Bechtle brings a balanced, practical perspective to the organizational goal of achieving individual habitual excellence, true teamwork, vertical communication, and safety resilience in both patient safety and worker safety.

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David Beshk
Award Winning Educator
Med Tac School Program Leader
Scout Program Mentor
San Juan Capistrano, CA

David Beshk is an award-winning educator and developer of many powerful and impactful programs in STEM and other areas such as 3D printing and international collaboration of students. He is the lead educator in development of the Med Tac After School and Summer School program and a key advisor regarding design of child appropriate training of lifeline behaviors for high impact care hazards. He has led, taught, and refined multiple school programs and was responsible for the first life saved through Med Tac before the first class graduated. He is a 2018 Pete Conrad Global Patient Safety Award winner for his role in developing the program for educators, schools, and scout groups. He has mentored the group of junior assistant Med Tac instructors from the ranks of middle and upper schools.

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Mr. Beshk has successfully completed the American College of Surgeon’s Stop the Bleed Instructor’s course and has taught the program with Dr. Denham to multiple grade school classes. He has completed the American Heart Association Heartsaver CPR/AED Instructor Certification program and is developing immersive simulation exercises that schools can use to address specific life-threatening scenarios. He is an Eagle Scout and serves as an advisor to the Eagle Scout Mentorship Network. He is a 5th grade science teacher and has been the Dean of Lower Students at a leading private school in Southern California. Mr. Beshk will lead the development of the curriculum and train the trainer program for educators.

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Preston Head, III
Co-founder Med Tac Lifeguard-Surf
Program & Water Polo Program
Master Med Tac Instructor

Preston Head IIIis one of our first Med Tac Master Trainers. He the co-founder of the Med Tac Lifeguard Surf Program and Water Polo Program with Charlie Denham. He has been a lifeguard, collegiate water polo player at UCLA, and competitive surfer.

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He is an accomplished trainer for the American Heart Association Heartsaver CPR/AED program and for the American College of Surgeons Stop the Bleed Program. Preston has been a mentor to our young assistant instructors and an inspiration to the Med Tac Team. He has been with Med Tac from the very beginning.

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Robert Katzer, MD, MBA, FAEMS, FACEP
Associate Clinical Professor
Associate Base Hospital Director
Department of Emergency Medicine
UC Irvine
Medical Director, City of Anaheim Fire and Rescue
Air Medic, San Bernardino County Sheriff
Orange, CA

Robert Katzer, MD, MBA, FAEMS, FACEP,is a board certified emergency medicine physician in Orange, California. He is affiliated with UC Irvine Medical Center and is an Instructor at University of California.

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When he’s not working at UC Irvine Health’s Emergency Department, Dr. Robert Katzer can be found volunteering as a helicopter physician with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.

As an Air Rescue Team member, Dr. Katzer acts as a flight physician working with the county public safety. The team provides needed air medical resources to San Bernardino County which is geographically the largest county in the United States. The team consists of volunteer emergency physicians, nurses, physician assistants, and paramedics that provide medical and rescue staffing to the county’s public safety rescue helicopters.

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Debbie Medina
Owner & Managing Director
CPR it Works, LLC
Brea, CA

Debbie Medina is a Master Med Tac Instructor who is an instructor with the American Heart Association for CPR/AED, First Aid, and Basic Life Support certifications. She is a Stop the Bleed instructor with the American College of Surgeons. Debbie’s background and education includes Cardiac Technology, EMT, CERT, Citizens Police Academy, and Business.

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Debbie has been a spokesperson for the American Heart Association (AHA) and resides on their Western Regional Advocacy Committee. She has spoken at many corporations, community events, and associations with the intent of changing the mindset of our citizens and empowering them to act. Owner of CPR it Works, LLC was inspired to start her business after her 25 year old son survived a sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) at home in 2016. Debbie’s has trained and certified CPR AED First Aid Stop the Bleed and Bloodborne Pathogens for teachers, healthcare workers, school districts, licensed child care providers, scouts, general business owners and their first responders, and a wide variety of occupations. Debbie is our expert on AED instruction, features, and best practices.

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Thomas Renner, EMT
Laguna Beach City Lifeguard
American Heart Association
CPR/AED Instructor
Stop the Bleed Instructor

Thomas Renner, EMT, performs 24-hour ocean/flood rescue, emergency medical response (BLS level), incident prevention, ordinance enforcement, public assistance, community education, and new-hire training for the City of Laguna Beach, California.

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He provides technical rescue response in SCUBA search-and-rescue/recovery, coastal cliff rescue, and rescue watercraft He is a certified EMT and has run the Laguna Beach City Junior Lifeguard Program consisting of over 450 children and twelve Instructors for summer. A pre-med student, he is an accomplished trainer for the American Heart Association and for the American College of Surgeons Stop the Bleed Program. He played water polo for Johns Hopkins University while in college and supports the Med Tac Water Polo and Surf and Lifeguard programs.

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Jaime Yrastorza
UCSD Graduate
Med Tac College Team Member

Jaime Yrastorza is a graduate of the University of California, San Diego with a major in molecular biology and a minor in chemistry. He researched the gene-environment interaction in cancer cell metastasis while at UCSD and is currently applying to medical schools. He has gone through the med-tac course and has been certified both by the AHA Heartsaver CPR/AED program and by the American College of Surgeon’s STOP THE BLEED® course. He is an Eagle Scout from Troop 22 in Lincoln, Nebraska. Jaime is a member of our College Leadership Team and will be attending medical school in 2021.

hilarySchmidt Hilary J. Schmidt, PhD
Consultant
Strategic Education Consulting
Hastings-On-Hudson, New York

Hilary J. Schmidt, PhD, is an advanced education expert with extensive experience applying principles and research from the behavioral sciences to the design of highly effective health sciences education. She has taught the Med Tac team critical best practices that have been incorporated in to the program and other programs of CareUniversity.

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She has a PhD in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania and has dedicated her professional life to translating research on how people learn into best practices for teaching, learning and assessment. She has worked in both academia (17 years) and in the Pharmaceutical industry (9 years) has expertise in cognitive psychology, education research, instructional design and outcomes assessment.

In academia, Dr. Schmidt founded and lead three centers for teaching and learning at NY area medical Schools including Columbia University Medical Center, SUNY-Downstate, and UMDNJ-Newark. She has authored books on study and testing skills, for medical students, and has published extensively in the field of medical education. In industry, at Sanofi pharmaceuticals she provided strategic leadership to the groups responsible for Independent Medical Education Grants, Investigator Initiated Research Trials, Transparency, and Medical Affairs Compliance Training.

She is a member of the Alliance for Continuing Education in the Health Professions (ACEHP) and served as the Chair of the Industry Alliance for Continuing Education in the Health Professions from 2011-13. She was a nominated member of the AMA Task Force on Industry Provider Collaboration in CME and served a s the Annual Meeting Chair for that organization in 2012. She is the recipient of the ACEHP’s Presidents Award 2013 for service provided to the organization. She is a frequent invited speaker at medical education conferences.

She recently co-founded (2014) the Calibre Institute for Quality Medical Education whose mission is to “Leverage Best-in-Class Education to Improve Patient-Care and Lower Healthcare Costs”.

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Jeanne M. Huddleston, MD, FACP, FHM
Hospitalist
Former Chair Mortality Review Subcommittee
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, MN

Jeanne M. Huddleston, MD, FACP, FHM, is a past President of the Society of Hospital Medicine, the founder of Hospital Medicine and past Program Director of the Hospital Medicine Fellowship at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN. She is the former Chairperson of Mayo Clinic’s Mortality Review Subcommittee, a multi-disciplinary group of providers that review every death in search of where the health care delivery system may have failed the providers and/or the patient.

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She received her MD degree in 1993 from the College of Human Medicine, Michigan State University. She completed her residency in internal medicine and advanced general medicine fellowship at Mayo Clinic. Dr. Huddleston is a Harvard Macy Scholar (both in the Physician Educator and the Leadership Programs) and alumnus of the Health Forum/AHA Patient Safety Leadership Fellowship. Dr. Huddleston has received Masters’ Degrees in both Clinical Research and Industrial Engineering. This education equipped her scholarly translation of systems engineering to health care delivery in an effort to improve the value of the healthcare experience for patients, their families and the providers through her work in mortality reviews and patient threat safety. Dr. Huddleston will provide ongoing subject matter expertise to Med Tac and the CareUniversity programs in the domain of triage of emergencies using the lessons learned from the Mayo Clinic Mortality Review programs.

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Daniel Policicchio, Jr.
Assistant Producer
Med Tac Films
NYU Student
New York City

Daniel Policicchio is an NYU student and aspiring filmmaker who has participated in pre-production and production of Med Tac films. He has been a lead documentarian and participant in our Med Tac deliberative simulation exercises.

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He has also been an instructor and speaker for our scout programs focused on movie making. Daniel has brought terrific support to capturing the action sequences of our Surf Lifeguard and Adopt a Cove programs. He will be a lead developer of the competitions we will hold throughout 2020 between the nation’s leading film schools. He will play a vital role in the development of our documentary 3 Minutes and Counting: Bystanders Care.

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Nancy Conrad
Founder and Chairman, Conrad Foundation
Seabrook, TX

Nancy Conrad is a tireless champion for patient safety and innovation through education. She is an advisor to CareUniversity and Med Tac in the area of outreach to children and youth and our liaison with NASA. She created the Conrad Foundation in 2008 to energize and engage students in science and technology through unique entrepreneurial opportunities.

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By enabling young minds to connect education, innovation, and entrepreneurship, the Foundation helps provide a bold platform for enriching the innovative workforce of the future. Ms. Conrad’s interest in patient safety began as a result of the death of her husband, astronaut Charles “Pete” Conrad. On July 8, 1999, while motorcycling, Pete ran off the road and crashed. His injuries were first thought to be minor, but he died from internal bleeding about six hours later. Ms. Conrad’s compelling story serves to personalize the need for patients and their families to take responsibility for their care, as well as to highlight the need for systemic changes in the quality of care. Ms. Conrad was co-founder and co-chairman of fundraising of the Community Emergency Healthcare Initiative. This program was designed to measurably affect preventable injury and death occurring in emergency departments. She established the Pete Conrad National Patient Safety Award to recognize global contributors in patient safety.

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Wills Johnson
EMT
MedTac Eagle Mentorship Program

Wills Johnson is a recent graduate of the University of Indiana, an Eagle Scout and a Co-founder of the Med Tac Certificate Course program for Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts. He is a certified Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) and is helping build the network of EMTs who will become future Med Tac Instructors.

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He and the Eagle Scout Mentorship Network in development will support future Eagle Scouts who want to undertake a Med Tac program as their Eagle Project. He will also be a lead developer of a potential Boy Scout Merit Badge focused on Med Tac.

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Kyle Kemp
Chief of Staff
TMIT
HCC Cooperation
Austin, TX

Kyle Kemp is the Chief of Staff of both TMIT and HCC Corporation owned by Dr. Denham. He coordinates and leads the information technology support for both organizations. He provides the operational support for the TMIT National Research Test Bed served by www.SafetyLeaders.org. which is one of the multiple websites operated by the companies.

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Kyle has run the 137 monthly webinars for over 12 years serving the world’s largest community of practice in patient safety with the highest customer satisfaction in the country. Kyle leads the team that develops and operates all of the web operations for the Med Tac program in addition to supervising day to day operations of TMIT.

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Patient and Family Advisory Board

Mary E. Foley, PhD, RN, FAAN
Clinical Professor, UCSF School of Nursing
Director, Center for Nursing Research and Innovation
Assistant Director for the Master’s Entry Program in Nursing
University of California, San Francisco (UCSF)
San Francisco, CA

Mary E. Foley, PhD, RN, is a Clinical Professor at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) School of Nursing and is the Director in the Center for Nursing Research and Innovation at UCSF. She is the Assistant Director for the Master’s Entry Program in Nursing at UCSF, and teaches in the Masters in Health Administration and Interprofessional Leadership (MS-HAIL) course at UCSF. Mary worked with the Collaborative Alliance for Nursing Outcomes (CALNOC) since 2004 and in January 2017 she will serve as Chairperson of the CALNOC Board of Directors. Mary is past president of the American Nurses Association and the National Student Nurses Association. She was a nurse for 19 years at Saint Francis Memorial Hospital in San Francisco, where she worked a staff nurse, Director of Nursing, and Safety Officer.

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A registered nurse for 43 years, Foley continues to teach, write and lecture, promoting safe care for workers and patients nationally and internationally. She served on the board of the National Patient Safety Foundation, an advisor to the Partnership for Patient Safety (p4ps) and is a member of the TMIT Patient and Family panel. Since 2012, she has worked with Karen Curtiss to improve family involvement in patient safety. She is a nursing consultant to “Safe and Sound in the Hospital” and PartnerHealth and she and Karen were faculty members in the Hospital Quality Institute HEN2.0 initiative in CA. She is proud of her membership and leadership on behalf of the Nursing Section of GLMA.

In November, 2011 she became Nursing Co-Lead for the IOM California Action Coalition and has developed a special interest in Academic Progression. She is Co-Chair of the HealthImpact and California Action Coalition Advisory Council. She was served on the board of CGFNS International and was Chairperson of the Safe in Common Campaign to address sharps injuries. Mary leads an ongoing Infection Control program for hospitals in coordination with Rwanda health leaders and taught with a delegation at two rural hospitals in Rwanda in August, 2015 and will be returning in 2017

Foley received her nursing diploma in 1973 from New England Deaconness Hospital School of Nursing, her BSN in 1976 from Boston University School of Nursing in Massachusetts, and her Master’s of Science in Nursing Administration and Occupational Health from UCSF in 1994. She received her PhD in Nursing from UCSF 2010, and was elected as a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing in 2013.

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Jennifer Dingman
Founder, Persons United Limiting Substandards
and Errors in Healthcare (PULSE), Colorado Division
Co-founder, PULSE American Division
TMIT Patient Advocate Team Member
Pueblo, CO

Jennifer Dingman realized, after her mother’s death in 1995 due to errors in medical diagnoses and treatment, that there is little to no help available for patients and their families in similar situations. This life-changing experience left her feeling vulnerable, and she decided to dedicate her life to help prevent medical tragedies from happening to others.

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In 1996, Jennifer founded PULSE of Colorado, now a national organization, as a platform to support patients and their families who had experienced medical errors and other adverse medical outcomes. Within two years, PULSE became a national force when PULSE of New York paved the way for many other state chapters to be born. Additionally, Jennifer became an active member of the National Patient Safety Foundation and served on numerous committees, including the Board of Governors.

For more than 15 years, she has volunteered her time to improve the quality of the healthcare system in the U.S. She believes that patient involvement, and promoting an equal partnership between the doctor and the patient, is the most effective way to achieve better quality in the healthcare industry.

Jennifer is a TMIT Patient Advocate Team Member. She has co-authored patient safety articles in peer-reviewed medical journals.

She is a member of Champion for Patient Safety, and represented the organization at the 2005 Patients for Patient Safety Workshop in London and the 2006 Pan American Health Organization Workshop in San Francisco to discuss patient safety and empowerment. Jennifer also served on the board of directors for a local Colorado-based community health center for six years and currently sits on the local school district’s health advisory board.

An avid patient advocate, Jennifer Dingman joined the Cautious Patient Foundation as an Advisory Board member. In this position, Jennifer offers input, ideas and expert advice on the Foundation’s key issues in order to bring changes to the current healthcare system.

Since 2009, Jennifer has served as a faculty member of The Patient Safety Clinical Pharmacy Collaborative, a groundbreaking patient safety initiative that has changed the face of healthcare delivery with measureable positive outcomes for patients. For her tireless efforts, she has won national recognition, including the 2004 Patient Safety Award given by the Colorado Patient Safety Coalition, where Jennifer is a member, and the 2007 Pete Conrad Patient Safety Award. Her invaluable input from a patient’s perspective is widely sought by healthcare groups that are addressing patient-safety issues. Jennifer’s energy and compassion help both patients and doctors alike.

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Becky Martins
Founder, Voice4Patients.com
Former TMIT Patient Advocate Team Member
Warren, ME

Becky Martins’ advocacy spirit derived from the days when she was driving a family member 150 miles round-trip, three days a week, to dialysis treatments. She spent countless hours at the unit visiting with patients and their families. It was through their stories that she learned of the many challenges faced by patients living with chronic illness. It was by their example that she learned of the resilience of the human spirit to face health and health-related challenges head-on.

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The unit was her classroom, and her teachers were the patients and families, along with the unit staff who cared for them. The experience became the impetus for her advocacy on behalf of end-stage renal disease patients. In 1996, Becky was the recipient of the Kidney Foundation of Maine Board of Trustees’ Service Award for 10 years of service. In 2002, Becky founded Voice4Patients.Com: an initiative to empower patients to be their own health care advocates. The site advocated building partnerships between patients and providers – and provided information and tools to strengthen consumer skills.

Becky Martins was a champion of patient- and family-centered care, effective communication in health care, and patient and family involvement: from the board room to examining room. She was a TMIT Patient Advocate Team Member; a Patients for Patient Safety Champion of the World Healthcare Organization’s World Alliance of Patient Safety; and a past member of National Patient Safety Foundation’s Patient & Family Advisory Councils. She was a contributor to “Opportunities for Patient and Family Involvement” – Chapter Nine of the National Quality Forum’s Safe Practices for Better Healthcare – 2009 Update: A Consensus Report.

The 121st Maine Legislature presented Ms. Martins with a Special Sentiment for her patient safety advocacy. She is a recipient of the Pete Conrad Patient Safety Excellence Award. Becky Martins passed away in July of 2020. Her wonderful words, affirmations, and voice of the patients expressed through TMIT Global webinars will be remembered forever. A woman of faith and true community leader with a servant’s heart, she will always be a role model to patient safety champions.

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Dan Ford, MBA, LFACHE
Voluntary Patient Safety Advocate
Spectrum Health EPFAC and Hospital Group Board Quality & Safety Committee Member
TMIT Patient Advocate Team Member
Retired Healthcare Executive Search Consultant
Veteran, Naval Aviation, Vietnam War
Rockford, MI

Dan Ford, MBA, LFACHE, developed a deep passion for patient safety as a result of medical errors experienced in Illinois by his first wife, Diane, and the treatment he experienced when he started asking logical and genuine questions. The mother of three children (11, 14, and 17 at the time) and age 47, Diane was pursuing her second master’s degree, and suffered a morphine-induced respiratory arrest following a hysterectomy. She has permanent brain damage/short-term memory loss and a poor quality of life, and resides in an independent living facility.

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Desiring to convert his anger, hurt, and frustration into constructive change – delayed because of a nine-year medical malpractice lawsuit – and using his visibility as a healthcare executive search consultant, Dan became a patient safety advocate in 2002. He has given 90 patient safety presentations to boards of directors, management, and physician leadership of hospitals, systems, other provider organizations, and HRSA. He is a CAPS member and WHO/PAHO champion, and works with TMIT and a group of other patient safety advocates on listening, disclosure, and related initiatives.

He has served on a number of other provider patient safety and quality committees nationally and in Arizona, including ISMP, NQF, The Joint Commission, IHI, AzHHA, Catholic Health Partners, and Carondelet Health Network. He helped to plan and facilitate CAPS “Partnering with Provider” workshops at Northwestern Memorial in Chicago, Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, and AzHHA in Phoenix in 2008 and 2009.

In 2010, Dan was a co-author, with Bev Johnson and Marie Abraham, of “Collaborating with patients and their families” in the Journal of Healthcare Risk Management, the journal of the American Society for Healthcare Risk Management. The story of serious medical errors experienced by Dan’s wife and the impacts his family has endured is told in a chapter of Dr. Sanjay Kumar’s book, Fatal Care: Survive in the U.S. Health System. Dan authored an article on patient and family involvement in root cause analyses, which appeared in the December 2013 online issue of Dorland Health’s Case in Point.

Dan is a retired Vice President with Furst Group, a national healthcare executive search firm headquartered in Rockford, Illinois. His MBA is from the University of Chicago, preceded by a BS from Jamestown University in North Dakota. He was in the Navy from 1964-69, a Naval Aviator in a transport squadron which serviced the fleet in the Pacific during the Vietnam War.

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Arlene Salamendra
Former Board member and Staff Coordinator,
Families Advocating Injury Reduction (FAIR);
TMIT Patient Advocate Team Member
Plano, IL

Arlene Salamendra is a former Board member and Staff Coordinator of Families Advocating Injury Reduction (FAIR). A number of years ago, she was the subject of a preventable medical error. Since that time, she has devoted a portion of her time to giving support to other patients who have been injured or have lost a loved one, and rectifying the systems errors that lead to preventable medical errors. She is a member of the TMIT Patient Advocate Team.