Call for Public Comment on Element 10.5 - January 30, 2025

Veronica Catanese received her undergraduate degree from Wellesley College, MD degree from the NYU School of Medicine, and MBA degree from NYU’s Stern School of Business. After residency training in internal medicine and a clinical fellowship in endocrinology, diabetes, and metabolism at NYU, she spent two years as a research fellow at the Joslin Diabetes Center of Harvard Medical School. She then returned to NYU as a faculty member in the departments of medicine and of cell biology, eventually becoming the medical school’s senior associate dean for education and student affairs.

In 2008, Dr. Catanese joined the founding team of the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra Northwell, where she served as vice dean, dean for academic affairs, and principal business officer. In 2016, Dr. Catanese assumed the position of Co-Secretary of the Liaison Committee on Medical Education and Senior Director, Accreditation Services, at the Association of American Medical Colleges. 

Throughout her professional life, Dr. Catanese has maintained a visible national profile in academic medicine, having served as president of the American Federation for Medical Research and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Investigative Medicine. She also has served as a member of the Institute of Medicine’s Clinical Research Roundtable, co-chair of the training subcommittee of the NIH Clinical Research Roadmap working group, and chair of an NIH biotechnology transfer study section.

Barbara Barzansky received her PhD in Developmental and Cell Biology from the University of California-Irvine and did postdoctoral work in the Department of Anatomy at the University of Wisconsin. She served as a faculty member in the Department of Anatomy at the Medical University of South Carolina. Dr. Barzansky then received a Master’s Degree in Health Professions Education from the University of Illinois-Chicago and remained at that institution as a faculty member in the Center for Educational Development (now Department of Medical Education). She then moved to the American Medical Association (AMA), where she served as the Secretary of the Council on Medical Education. She now serves as Director of the Division of Undergraduate Medical Education and AMA Co-Secretary of the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME). Dr. Barzansky’s research has focused on factors that influence the ability to bring about change in medical education.

Robert Hash’s background includes experience in undergraduate medical education teaching and administration, teaching in the graduate medical education domain, continuing medical education, organized medicine, practice in free clinics, and private practice. He has completed residencies in Emergency Medicine and Family Medicine, and earned a certificate of added qualification in Sports Medicine. He has served as a team member or team secretary on numerous LCME survey visits, and has served as LCME Assistant Secretary in the Chicago office since 2013. 

Donna Russo received her BA in Biological Sciences from the University of Delaware and her PhD in Microbiology and Immunology from Hahnemann University School of Medicine. She completed her post-doctoral training at the Seattle Biomedical Research Institute, where she was a National Research Service Fellow before becoming a faculty member of Meharry Medical College for seven years.

In 2000, she joined the faculty at MCP Hahnemann University which eventually became Drexel University College of Medicine, in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology where she achieved the rank of professor and served primarily as a medical educator. Dr. Russo also served in the dean’s office for over 20 years in various roles, including as senior associate dean of curriculum and the William Maul Measey Chair in Medical Education.  Most recently, she served as interim vice dean of educational and academic affairs. Dr. Russo was the faculty accreditation lead and chair of the self-study task force for two Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) accreditation cycles, and the medical education program self-study sub-committee chair in an earlier cycle.  She was a member of multiple LCME survey teams and was elected as a professional member of the LCME.

Dr. Russo has over 60 publications, abstracts, and presentations on the immunobiology of intracellular organisms and in the field of medical education. She has served on the editorial board for Elsevier Student Consult and as the MedU/Aquifer Microbiology Editor. A member of Alpha Omega Alpha and Sigma Psi, Dr. Russo has been the recipient of multiple Golden Apple Excellence in Teaching awards and the Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Foundation Award for Distinguished Teaching.

She now serves as the LCME Assistant Secretary and Senior Director, LCME Surveys and Team Training for the Association of American Medical Colleges.

Dr. Graham is a professor and pediatric emergency physician at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences College of Medicine.  Currently, he serves as the Executive Associate Dean for Academic Affairs overseeing all aspects of the M.D. degree program.  He has previously served in a number of roles including clinical skills course director, pediatrics clerkship director, pediatric emergency medicine fellowship director, and section chief of pediatric emergency medicine.  He has served on LCME survey visit teams for the past 14 years and is in his fifth year as a member of the LCME.

Bradley Britigan is as internal medicine/infectious disease physician scientist who is in his fourteenth year as the Stokes-Shackleford Professor and Dean of the University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Medicine (UNMC) in Omaha, Nebraska. Following the 2014 creation of Nebraska Medicine, the primary UNMC clinical affiliate, he served two years as its interim President. He also is responsible for the UNMC faculty practice plan in partnership with the CEOs of Nebraska Medicine and Children’s Hospital and Medical Center in Omaha. A Minnesota native who grew up in St. Louis, Dr. Britigan earned his bachelor’s degree at Cornell University and medical degree at The University of Southern California. He completed internal medicine residency at Rhode Island Hospital and infectious diseases fellowship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Following training, he joined the faculty of the University of Iowa College of Medicine, where he remained for 17 years, 11 as director of the division of infectious disease. Dr. Britigan came to UNMC after seven years as chair of the department of internal medicine at the University of Cincinnati. During Dr. Britigan’s tenure at UNMC, faculty numbers, clinical programs and research funding/rankings have increased substantially. A new medical school curriculum was implemented, the number of women in leadership roles increased significantly, and the college’s first regional campus is in development.

Dr. Britigan continues to be an active clinician, educator, and investigator. This includes a recently completed 35-year tenure as a VA physician scientist. Dr. Britigan’s research, which has been funded by NIH, the VA, and several research foundations, focuses on the role of oxygen radicals and iron metabolism in host defense and microbial pathogenesis. Dr. Britigan was elected to membership in the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians and has served as president of both the American Federation for Medical Research and Central Society for Clinical Research. He was a member of the administrative board of the AAMC Council of Deans and is has been a member of the Liaison Committee for Medical Education (LCME) since 2022 and currently serves as its chair-elect.