- Discuss and review all-hazard events as they pertain to Emergency Preparedness
- Explore opportunities for HM involvement in Emergency preparedness
- Approach current Disaster planning deficiencies and their effect in hospitals
- Formulate a pathway for individual, divisional and departmental training, and involvement in incident command
Maria G Frank, MD, FACP, SFHM
Associate Professor of Medicine, University of Colorado School of Medicine
Hospitalist and Medical Director, Biocontainment Unit, Denver Health Hospital Authority Unit
Dr. Frank is the Associate Director for the Department of Medicine, a hospitalist, and the Medical Director of the Biocontainment Unit (BCU) at Denver Health and Hospital Authority, a level one trauma center affiliated with the University of Colorado. In her role as the medical director of BCU, she serves as the site Principal Investigator for the NIH-sponsored ACTT trial. Denver Health is one of the 10 Regional Emergent Special Pathogens Treatment Centers (RESPTCs) and BCU members are actively involved in National Ebola Training and Education Center (NETEC) and Special Pathogens Research Network (SPRN). She is also the Director for Faculty development and Advancement for the Division of Hospital Medicine and Associate Professor of Medicine for the University of Colorado, School of Medicine. Dr. Frank received her medical diploma from the University of Buenos Aires in Buenos Aires, Argentina; completed a residency in Internal Medicine and another in Emergency Medicine in Argentina. She immigrated to the US in 2004 where she completed another Internal Medicine Residency at the University of Colorado joining as faculty after graduation. Her areas of interest include medical education and faculty advancement, emergent special pathogens and disaster preparedness and response.
Jason Persoff, MD, SFHM
Associate Professor of Medicine, University of Colorado School of Medicine
Assistant Director of Emergency Preparedness at University of Colorado Hospital
Jason Persoff, MD, SFHM, is an internationally renowned storm chaser, father of three, husband to an amazing Kindergarten-teaching wife, erstwhile stand-up comedian, and contemporaneous Associate Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Colorado. Dr. Persoff was born and raised, and eventually left, Denver, Colorado, but not without first completing his B.S. in Medical Science and M.D. at the University of Colorado. He completed his internship, residency, and Chief Resident at Mayo Clinic Florida. He was one of the inaugural hospitalists at Mayo Clinic Florida, where he worked for 10 years on staff and received myriad teaching awards, including the distinction of Teacher of the Year for the institution. In 2011, Dr. Persoff joined the Hospital Medicine Group at University of Colorado where he is a nocturnist and educator. Each May he spends two weeks scouring the Great Plains using many of the same skills he uses in internal medicine—analyzing and interpreting subtle and system-wide weather physiology—to pursue severe thunderstorms and tornadoes. He has appeared in many TV specials (The Weather Channel, Discovery Channel, and The Learning Channel), and has appeared in myriad magazines and books. Dramatic pictures and stories can be viewed at http://stormdoctor.com/. After chasing a tornado through Joplin, MO, in May, 2011, that resulted in mass destruction of that city, he responded to the disaster by going to the Freeman Health System emergency room and functioned as a hospitalist for the first day of the disaster. That experience fostered a lifelong research interest focusing on the role of hospitalists in responding to disaster. More recently that role transformed into a leadership position at preparation, response, and recovery for the University of Colorado Hospital and UC Health System during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Several of those experiences have resulted in publications in peer-reviewed journals and numerous blog posts. He is also known nationally for research in advanced cardiac resuscitation.