COURSE DIRECTORS
Katharyn Meredith Atkins, MD
Dr. Atkins is an Obstetrician-Gynecologist and educator at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School. She is the Associate Dean for Curriculum at HMS and the Associate Director of the Carl J. Shapiro Center for Education and Research at BIDMC. She teaches in all levels of Harvard Medical School’s curriculum. In addition, she teaches residents in the Resident-as-Teacher Program at BIDMC Obstetrics and Gynecology Residency. Dr. Atkins is a 2011 graduate of the Association of Professors of Gynecology and Obstetrics’ Scholars and Leaders Program and a 2013 graduate of Harvard Medical School’s Academy Fellowship for Medical Education.
Margaret “Molly” Hayes, MD, ATSF
Dr. Hayes is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. She is the director of the Medical Intensive Care Units at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical (BIDMC) Center, the co-chair of the Critical Care Executive Committee at BIDMC and the co-founder and co-director of the Center for Humanizing the ICU at BIDMC. She obtained her medical degree from Tufts University School of Medicine and then completed Internal Medicine and Pulmonary and Critical Care training at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD. She also served as Assistant Chief of Service (Chief Resident) for one year at Johns Hopkins. During that year she realized her passion for medical education and since then has taught in numerous CME courses. She also directs two highly rated Harvard Medical School CME courses. She is an active member of the American Thoracic Society, where she serves multiple educational roles. She is a deputy editor of CHEST Critical Care where she oversees invited content and medical education submissions. Dr. Hayes enjoys teaching learners of all levels and has won numerous local and national educator awards. Dr. Hayes has advanced training in medical education research and is passionate about critical thinking, adult learning theory and high stakes communication specifically around end of life in the intensive care unit. She is an ardent advocate for humanizing the ICU experience for patients, visitors, and staff. She has numerous publications on teaching communication skills as well as the importance of critical thinking in medicine. She is also interested in international education as the Director for External Education at the Carl J. Shapiro Institute for Education and Research and has travelled extensively teaching medical education.
David H. Roberts, MD
Dr. Roberts is Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and Dean for External Education at HMS. Dr. Roberts is also the Director of International Programs at the Shapiro Institute for Education and Research at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
Dr. Roberts is a leader in medical education across the learning continuum and he has led faculty development programs in the US, Europe and the Mideast. He has also been responsible for the teaching of medical students across the four years of HMS training and most recently was the course director for the 3rd year longitudinal Principal Clinical Experience (PCE) at BIDMC. Dr. Roberts also teaches residents, fellows and other physicians in practice, and he is a graduate of the Rabkin Fellowship in Medical Education and Harvard-Macy Program for Educators in Health Professions.
Dr. Roberts’ education research interests include studying learners’ curiosity and critical thinking skills. Dr. Roberts serves on several national education committees for the American Thoracic Society. He also co-directs the annual Harvard CME course “Principles of Medical Education: Maximizing your Teaching Skills.”
Dr. Roberts has won many teaching awards including the HMS Faculty Prize for Excellence in Teaching (2006), the S. Robert Stone Award for Excellence in Teaching at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (2007), and the American Thoracic Society Annual Educator Award (2014).
Richard M. Schwartzstein, MD
Dr. Schwartzstein is the Ellen and Melvin Gordon Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Medical Education at Harvard Medical School, is Chief of the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at BIDMC.
After earning his AB in politics from Princeton, Dr. Schwartzstein received his MD degree from Harvard, followed by clinical training in internal medicine at Beth Israel Hospital and in pulmonary and critical care medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Dr. Schwartzstein has been an active clinical educator and researcher since he came to the HMS faculty over 30 years ago. He completed a Rabkin Fellowship in Medical Education, for which he was named the Kay Senior Fellow, and developed a program in clinical education for the BIDMC’s Department of Medicine that employed a core faculty teaching model. He was course director of Integrated Human Physiology in the first year New Pathway curriculum, and he developed the Principal Clinical Experience program at BIDMC for third-year students. More recently, Dr. Schwartzstein chaired the Steering Committee that developed the Pathways curriculum at HMS, which entered its first class in 2015 and employs case-based collaborative learning, a new flipped classroom model that resulted from a randomized controlled trial performed at HMS under his direction. Educational leadership roles include serving as the Executive Director of the Shapiro Institute for Education and Research, and as Vice President for Education at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center since 2004. He led the HMS Academy for Teaching Excellence and Educational Innovation in from 2009-2018.
In addition to many awards and honors for his teaching at HMS and BIDMC, he has received prestigious national teaching awards, including the Robert J. Glaser Distinguished Teaching Award from the Association of American Medical Colleges and the Outstanding Educator Award from the American Thoracic Society. Dr. Schwartzstein, along with Rabkin Fellowship graduate Dr. Michael Parker, co-authored a textbook of respiratory physiology, which received the 2006 Frank Netter Award for Special Contributions to Medical Education; two additional books in this series (cardiovascular and renal physiology), for which Dr. Schwartzstein is the editor, have also been published. Drs. Schwartzstein and Parker served as series editors for “Interactive Physiology Grand Rounds” for Chest, the journal of the American College of Chest Physicians.
COURSE FACULTY
Quinn Capers, IV, MD
Dr. Capers is an Interventional Cardiologist, Professor of Medicine, and transformational leader in academic medicine. He has been widely decorated as an educator, clinician, and champion of diversity enhancement in medicine.
From 2009-2019 he served as the Associate Dean of Admissions at The Ohio State University College of Medicine and led the school to have one of the most diverse student bodies in the nation while keeping the class average MCAT score above the 90th percentile. He was inducted into OSU’s Society of Master Clinicians, was voted the “Professor of the Year” by the class of 2019, and was inducted into university’s Diversity and Inclusion “Hall of Fame” in 2022. Nationally, he is the recipient of the American Heart Association’s Laennec Clinician-Educator Award, the Association of American Medical Colleges Exemplary Leadership Award in Diversity and Inclusion, the American College of Cardiology’s Distinguished Award for Excellence in Diversity and Inclusion and he is a member of the Association of University Cardiologists, a national honorary of America’s leading academic cardiologists. Physician peers named him one of America’s “Best Doctors” 11 years in a row, and his patient satisfaction scores placed in the 90th percentile nationally for six straight years.
An in-demand speaker on topics of diversity, healthcare disparities, and racism and bias in medicine, Capers has published extensively on these topics. His manuscript in Academic Medicine in 2017 was first to identify the presence and extent of implicit racial bias in medical school admissions. The paper has been cited 300 times and has influenced bias reduction in candidate selection in medical schools throughout the US and abroad. He has been an invited speaker at more than 65 major academic medical centers in the US and has trained more than 3,000 physicians in strategies to reduce the impact of implicit racial bias in patient care and candidate selection.
Capers is a graduate of Howard University and The Ohio State University College of Medicine, and trained in internal medicine, cardiovascular diseases, and interventional cardiology at Emory University. In 2024, he joined the faculty at the Howard University College of Medicine as Professor and Chair of the Department of Internal Medicine.
Huma Farid, MD
Dr. Huma Farid is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Medical School. She completed her residency in obstetrics and gynecology in the combined program at Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. After residency, she joined the faculty in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), a Harvard Medical School affiliate. She served as the Associate Program Director for the obstetrics and gynecology residency program for 5 years and is the Director of the Colposcopy Clinic at BIDMC. She is currently the Division Chief of the Academic Specialists in General Obstetrics and Gynecology and the Director of the BIDMC Academy.
Laurie Fishman, MD
Dr. Fishman completed her residency in Pediatrics at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and her fellowship in Pediatric Gastroenterology at Boston Children's Hospital. She joined the faculty in 1995, and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2017.
Dr. Fishman completed the Rabkin fellowship in Medical Education in 2003. She has been on the board of the Academy at Boston Children's Hospital since 2008, and joined the Harvard Academy of Teaching and Learning in 2010. She was chair of the Professional Education committee for the national pediatric GI society (NASPGHAN), directed the Post Graduate course for the national meetings. She was one of the few pediatrician members of the AGA Education and Training committee and became a member of the AGA Education Academy. She is currently a member of the GI Subboard of the American Board of Pediatrics.
Dr. Fishman taught in Harvard Medical School GI Pathophysiology course for 17 years. She ran faculty development sessions for tutors, participated in peer observation, served as an OSCE examiner and co-chaired the Pediatric Interest group. At Boston Children’s Hospital she reorganized the GI Fellowship Orientation for 3 years, was a member of the Fellowship Steering committee, became director of Medical Education for Gastroenterology in 2008, and revitalized and led the GI Grand Round series.
Dr. Fishman has a particular interest in teaching the skills for leading a discussion. She has created pedagogical cases and has taught in a variety of settings, including Boston Children’s Hospital Academy, BCH departments of Adolescent Medicine and Behavioral Medicine, national pediatric GI fellows conferences and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Academy. She has led workshops in this subject at the Principles of Medical Education: Maximizing your Teaching Skills CME course since 2011.
Dr. Jason Freed
Dr. Jason Freed is the deputy section chief of Benign Hematology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School. He completed his residency, chief residency, and fellowship in hematology-oncology at Beth Israel Deaconess before joining the staff as a hematologist. He has a number of educational leadership roles at BIDMC and HMS including serving as the associate program director for the internal medicine residency, the director of fellowship education for the department of medicine, and co-course director for the hematology course in the Harvard-MIT combined MD program. He is the hematology course director for “Physiology on the Fly”, a nationally renowned faculty development program for internists, taught at Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory. He is also the founding director of the BIDMC Clinician-Educator Track for medicine subspecialty fellows, the first of its kind. He does research in medical education and clinical hematology and his work has been published in Academic Medicine, the Journal of General Internal Medicine, and JAMA.
Ted A. James, MD, MHCM, FACS
Dr. James is the Vice Chair of Academic Affairs for Surgery, and Chief of Breast Surgical Oncology at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He was a Macy Faculty Scholar and has held a number of leadership roles in medical education. Dr. James believes in improving the quality in health care delivery by advancing the education and training of health professionals. Dr. James serves as faculty for professional and executive leadership development programs at Harvard Medical School and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. He enjoys partnering with other health care professionals to develop practical solutions to modern health care challenges.
Ryan Nelson, MD
Dr. Nelson is an academic hospitalist with the Division of General Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and an Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School.
At BIDMC, he serves as Associate Site Clerkship Director and a Core Faculty member for the Medicine Clerkship at Harvard Medical School, and Director of the Immersion in Hospital Medicine Elective for the Internal Medicine Residency Program. Nationally, he has served on the Society of Hospital Medicine’s Physicians in Training Committee for the past 6 years and currently serves on the SHM’s Academic Committee.
In his first 2 years of practice, he was an academic hospitalist at Ochsner Medical Center in New Orleans, LA and was awarded Teacher of the Year, 2019-2020. At BIDMC, he was awarded Teacher of the Year – Hospital Medicine, 2023-2024 by the BIDMC Section of Hospital Medicine.
Dr. Nelson is a graduate of the Rabkin Fellowship in Medical Education at BIDMC, and his research focuses on whiteboard-based education, hospital medicine-focused education in residency, and trainee and early-career physician mentorship.
Kerri Palamara, MD
Dr. Palamara is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. She completed her medical degree at New York Medical College and Primary Care Internal Medicine Residency training at Massachusetts General Hospital, and now practices as a primary care general internist at MGH. Dr. Palamara leads the Center for Professional Well-being for the Department of Medicine at MGH, and co-leads the MGH Workplace Well-being Collaborative and the MGH ELEVATE Physician Leadership Program. Her academic work focuses on physician coaching, clinician well-being, and faculty development. Dr. Palamara created and directs the Physician Coaching Program for trainees at MGH as well as the faculty physician coaching programs at MGH and is currently involved in several randomized controlled trials locally and nationally on the impact of coaching for coachees and their coaches. The MGH Physician Coaching Program has expanded nationally to over 40 residency and fellowship programs and Dr. Palamara is actively involved in onboarding, evaluating and sustaining these programs. Dr. Palamara leads the American College of Physicians “Physician Coach Training Program”, which focuses on training physicians to integrate coaching techniques into their quality improvement and well-being initiatives. For her work, Dr. Palamara has won teaching awards at MGH, Partners Healthcare, Harvard Medical School, Mass General Brigham, the Society of General Internal Medicine, and the American College of Physicians; and has been awarded Mastership in the American College of Physicians.
Dr. Adam Rodman
Dr. Rodman is a general internist and hospitalist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He completed his medical and public health degrees at Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans, and completed an internship and residency in internal medicine at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, OR, as well as a fellowship in global health at BIDMC while practicing in Molepolole, Botswana. He is an Instructor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School where he is core faculty for clinical skills assessment and a core preceptor at the student-run Crimson Care Collaborative clinic. He is also the Director of the New Media in Medical Education Initiative at BIDMC, dedicated to the study, promotion, and best practices of all types of new media.
Besides taking care of his patients, his greatest interest is asking, “Why”? During his second year of residency, he launched the medical podcast Bedside Rounds, taking a historical perspective to exploring how modern medicine came to be. Over the past five years, the podcast has grown exponentially, both in reach and ambition; Bedside Rounds is one of the top medicine podcasts on the Apple Podcasts chart, and it has been written up as a top medical podcast in the British Medical Journal, ACP Hospitalist, and Internal Medicine News. He currently partners with the American College of Physicians to provide CME and MOC points for listeners, and travels across the country to speak about medical history. His research interests are in the use of new media for medical education, and he has several ongoing research projects to that end.
C. Christopher Smith, MD
Dr. Smith is a general internist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and an Associate Professor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He received his undergraduate degree from Loyola University and his Medical Degree from the University of Tennessee College of Medicine. He trained in internal medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. After serving as Chief Medical Resident, Dr. Smith completed the Rabkin Fellowship in Medical Education through Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and later served as the Director of the Rabkin Fellowship. He is the Director of the Internal Medical Residency Program at BIDMC, Director of the Clinician Educator Track for the medical residency program and Vice-Chair for Education for the Department of Medicine. He has won numerous teaching awards including the Herrman L. Blumgart Faculty Award, the Robert Moellering Award for excellence in teaching, research and clinical care, the Society of General Internal Medicine National Award for Scholarship in Medical Education, and the S. Robert Stone Award for Excellence in Teaching at Harvard Medical School.
Morgan Soffler, MD
Dr. Soffler is an Assistant Professor at New York Medical College in Westchester NY. She is an intensivist and sleep specialist with expertise in medical education. Dr. Soffler obtained her medical degree from Tufts University School of Medicine and completed her Internal Medicine training at Yale New Haven Hospital in New Haven, Connecticut. During her time at Yale she realized her love for teaching and spent a year as a Chief Medical Resident. She completed her pulmonary and critical training at the combined Harvard program at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Massachusetts General Hospital, including a year of training with a medical education research focus with the Shapiro Center for Education. In addition to her clinical work, she completed a two-year fellowship in the Harvard Academy fellowship for medical education research. Dr. Soffler’s research focuses on simulation-based medical education and simulation-based evaluation. She currently serves as the Associate Program Director for the Westchester Medical Center Pulmonary and Critical Care Fellowship after serving in this role at the Harvard program. Dr. Soffler has served as faculty for a number of CME courses and is an active member of the American Thoracic Society’s Steer Committee on Advancement of Learning and Section of Medical Education.
Carrie Tibbles, MD
Dr. Tibbles is an Emergency Physician at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. She received her bachelor’s degree in biology and psychology from Gordon College and her medical degree from Boston University School of Medicine. She completed her residency training in emergency medicine at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She then joined the department of emergency medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center where she assumed the role of the Associate Residency Director of the Harvard Affiliated Emergency Medicine Residency. She has been awarded an American College of Emergency Physicians National Faculty Award and was named the American College of Emergency Physicians Outstanding Speaker of the Year. She currently serves as the Director of Graduate Medical Education at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
As a Rabkin Fellow, Dr. Tibbles was named the Kay Senior Fellow in Medical Education and concentrated on developing a team training curriculum for the emergency department staff. This curriculum is based on communication techniques and team skills used by high performance teams in aviation and the military to reduce performance errors and was recently employed in a multicenter study.
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