Appendix A
Committee Biographical Sketches
Bernard Lo, M.D. (Chair), is the president of The Greenwall Foundation, whose mission is supporting bioethics research and young researchers in bioethics. He is also a professor emeritus of medicine and the director emeritus of the Program in Medical Ethics at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). A member of the National Academy of Medicine, Dr. Lo served on the Institute of Medicine (IOM) Council and chaired the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Board on Health Sciences Policy. He chaired the IOM committees Sharing Clinical Trial Data (2015) and Conflicts of Interest in Medical Research, Education, and Practice (2009). He co-chairs the Standards Working Group of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, which recommends ethics standards for publicly funded stem cell research in California. Dr. Lo serves on the board of directors of the Association for the Accreditation of Human Research Protection Programs and on the medical advisory panel of Blue Cross/Blue Shield. Formerly he was a member of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission, the National Institutes of Health Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee, and the ethics subcommittee of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Lo and his colleagues have published around 200 peer-reviewed articles on ethical issues concerning decision making near the end of life, oversight of research, the doctor–patient relationship, and conflicts of interest. He is the author of Resolving Ethical Dilemmas: A Guide for Clinicians (6th ed., 2019). He continues to care for a panel of primary care internal medicine patients at UCSF. Dr. Lo received his M.D. from Stanford University.
Mark C. Bicket, M.D., is an assistant professor of anesthesiology and critical care medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and is the director of the Multidisciplinary Pain Medicine Fellowship Program and the director of the Divisional Safety and Quality Assurance Program at Johns Hopkins. He also is a core faculty member of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg Center for Drug Safety and Effectiveness. Dr. Bicket focuses his clinical expertise and research on interventional pain management with the goal of improving treatment options for patients with chronic and persisting pain. His research and work have been published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), British Medical Journal, JAMA Surgery, Anesthesiology, Regional Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, and The Spine Journal, among others. He recently published a review in JAMA that discussed the need for more
personalized pain management to avoid over-prescribing opioids and reduce risks linked to improperly stored opioids in the home. He also attends in operating rooms, with an emphasis on care under the enhanced recovery after surgery and obstetrical anesthesiology services. He is a member of the American Society of Anesthesiologists, the American Pain Society, and the American Academy of Pain Medicine. Dr. Bicket obtained his M.D. from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, performed a pain management fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital, and maintains board certifications in both pain medicine and anesthesiology from the American Board of Anesthesiology.
Nicholas W. Carris, Pharm.D., BCPS, is an assistant professor in the University of South Florida (USF) Health Taneja College of Pharmacy and the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine. As a board certified pharmacotherapy specialist, Dr. Carris has significant training and expertise in drug therapy. He has completed literature evaluations and has published an evaluation of implementing a new guideline recommendation. Dr. Carris has collaborated with a regional accountable care organization to implement the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s opioid use guidelines. As part of this effort, he worked with key stakeholders and physicians to emphasize deprescribing. Dr. Carris is a member of the American College of Cardiology, the American Heart Association, the Florida Society of Health-System Pharmacists, and the American College of Clinical Pharmacy (ACCP), and the ACCP Ambulatory Care Practice and Research Network (Ambulatory Care PRN). Dr. Carris serves on a subcommittee in the Ambulatory Care PRN that awards seed grants as well as scholarships to members to attend training programs regarding grant writing or general research. Dr. Carris received his doctor of pharmacy degree from the University of Florida College of Pharmacy.
Roger Chou, M.D., is the director of the Pacific Northwest Evidence-Based Practice Center, a professor of medical informatics and clinical epidemiology and medicine, and a practicing internist at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU). His primary clinical research areas are screening and prevention, the evaluation and management of pain, HIV/hepatitis C, and diagnostic testing. Dr. Chou has conducted more than 60 systematic reviews used by various organizations to formulate research agendas, develop clinical practice guidelines, and inform health care policy and clinical practice. He led a review commissioned by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) on prescribing opioids for chronic pain; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) commissioned an update of this review to develop its recently issued guidelines on prescribing opioids for chronic pain. Dr. Chou served as the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) methodologist for 2016 CDC opioid guidelines and was a member of the steering committee. In addition to leading numerous evidence-based practice center (EPC) reviews for the AHRQ Effective Health Care Program, Dr. Chou has led OHSU’s work supporting the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) since 2010 and, just this year, was awarded a 3-year contract to conduct seven prevention and counseling systematic reviews for USPSTF in collaboration with other EPC faculty and staff. Dr. Chou also conducts research on systematic review methods and best practices, and he serves as the GRADE methodologist for the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) Division of Reproductive Health, is the GRADE methodologist and a member of the WHO guideline development group for the diagnosis and treatment of viral hepatitis, and is a longstanding member of the Cochrane Back Review Editorial Board (currently serving as coordinating editor). Previously, Dr. Chou served as the director of the American Pain Society’s Clinical Practice Guidelines Development Program and as a member of the American College of Physicians Clinical Practice Guidelines Committee. Dr. Chou received his medical degree from the Northwestern University Medical School, and he completed an internal medicine residency at OHSU and a health services research fellowship at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Portland Health Care System.
M. Kit Delgado, M.D., M.S., is an assistant professor of emergency medicine and epidemiology and a practicing trauma center emergency physician. He leads the Behavioral Science and Analytics for Injury Reduction Lab, which applies data science and behavioral economics for preventing injuries from addictive behaviors and substances and for improving acute care. He is developing and testing health system interventions that leverage insights from behavioral economics to promote opioid stewardship for acute and postoperative pain management. He currently leads the acute pain work group of the University Pennsylvania Health System Opioid Task Force. His research is funded by the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. Department of Transportation, and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. He is a Leonard Davis Institute Health Economics Senior Fellow and a faculty member in the Center for Emergency Care Policy and Research, the Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics, the Penn Injury Science Center, and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Center for Injury Research and Prevention. He has previously served as a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Committee on Accelerating Progress to Reduce Alcohol-Impaired Driving Fatalities. He received his M.D. from the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and his M.S. in health services research from Stanford University.
Christine D. Greco, M.D., is the clinical director of pain service at Boston Children’s Hospital and an assistant professor of anesthesia at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Greco is also the associate program director, Pediatric Pain Medicine Fellowship, at Children’s Hospital. Her clinical practice is focused on the management of pain in children, including pelvic pain and endometriosis. Dr. Greco has made presentations on “Opioid Therapy, Pediatric Pain Management and End of Life Care,” “Opioids in Adolescents; Principles of Pediatric Anesthesia and Critical Care,” and “Managing the Opioid Epidemic in Hospitalized Children.” She is a member of the American Society of Anesthesiologists and the American Academy of Pediatrics. Dr. Greco is certified by the American Board of Anesthesiology in pediatric anesthesiology. She received her medical degree from the University of Pittsburgh Medical School, had a pediatric residency at The Ohio State University, and had an anesthesia residency and pediatric anesthesia fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco.
Hillary V. Kunins, M.D., M.P.H., M.S., is the executive deputy commissioner of mental hygiene at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Dr. Kunins leads work in substance use disorders for the department and was the driving force behind implementation of New York City’s guidelines for “judicious prescribing” in emergency departments (EDs) and primary care; these guidelines and their implementation provided an impetus to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines. Dr. Kunins is the health department lead of HealingNYC, New York City’s $60 million comprehensive opioid strategy. Among the key parts of that strategy are how Dr. Kunins has scaled up naloxone distribution to more than 100,000 kits to laypeople; established Relay, an ED-based post-overdose intervention; and overseen provider education about judicious opioid prescribing using academic detailing. She is a frequent speaker on the role of public health in the opioid epidemic and about strategies for clinicians to prevent opioid overdose. Dr. Kunins previously was the program director of residency in primary care/social internal medicine at Montefiore Medical Center/Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She is a fellow of the American Society of Addiction Medicine and in 2017 received the Gary S. Spero Memorial Award for leadership in mental health and substance use treatment from Cornell University. Dr. Kunins received her M.D. and M.P.H. from Columbia University and an M.S. from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine Clinical Research Training Program.
Marjorie C. Meyer, M.D., is the division director of maternal fetal medicine and an attending physician in obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Vermont Medical Center and an associate professor (tenured) in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Vermont. Dr. Meyer’s research interests focus on maternal and newborn sequelae of opioid use in pregnancy: outcomes, opioid use in women, contraception use in opioid-dependent women, and pain control in labor and delivery. She has a grant from the Vermont Child Health Improvement Program to develop a statewide network of care for the treatment of pregnant women with opioid dependence. Dr. Meyer also is engaged in communication with and the education of obstetricians and gynecologists across the state regarding public health initiatives, changes in care models (Blueprint), and quality metrics (vital statistics, statewide database data). She received her medical degree from the University of Florida College of Medicine.
Richard Payne, M.D., was the chair in bioethics at the Center for Practical Bioethics and a professor emeritus in the Duke Divinity School at Duke University. He published extensively in the areas of chronic pain with cancer, neurology, palliative care, end-of-life care and the use of hospice, and access for minorities to pain management. Dr. Payne was a past president of the American Pain Society. He previously gave expert testimony to the Congressional Black Caucus National Brain Trust and the President’s Cancer Panel in the area of health care access disparities in cancer care, palliative medicine, and end-of-life care. Dr. Payne was a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Board on Health Sciences Policy and a member of the National Academies’ Committee on Physician-Assisted Death: Scanning the Landscape and Potential Approaches and the Committee on Advancing Pain Research, Care, and Education. He received his M.D. from Harvard University.
Rosemary C. Polomano, Ph.D., R.N., FAAN, is the associate dean for practice and a professor of pain practice at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing. She holds a secondary appointment as a professor of anesthesiology and critical care at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine and is a senior nurse scientist at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. She is also an adjunct professor at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, Maryland, in the Graduate School of Nursing. Her research focuses on the impact of pain prevention and treatment strategies on short- and long-term pain outcomes with adult postsurgical patients, military service members and veterans, and cancer patients. Dr. Polomano has led research to develop and test patient-reported outcome measures such as the American Pain Society-Patient Outcomes Questionnaire–Revised and the new Defense and Veterans Pain Rating Scale. She has co-authored numerous evidence-based guidelines and consensus reports to advance pain care. She is currently a member of the American Pain Society, the American Academy of Pain Medicine, the Acute Pain Taxonomy, and the Analgesic, Anesthetic, and Addiction Clinical Trial Translations, Innovations, Opportunities, and Networks Acute Neuropathic Pain expert panels. Dr. Polomano is co-director of the University of Pennsylvania’s National Institutes of Health–designated center of excellence in pain education, and she leads several pain-related interprofessional education initiatives across the university’s health profession schools. In 2014, in recognition of her career-long work to advance pain science, Dr. Polomano received Penn Nursing’s Norma M. Lang Award for Scholarly Practice and Policy. She has published more than 100 peer-reviewed journal articles and more than 30 chapters in nursing and medical textbooks. She received her M.S.N. from the University of Pennsylvania and a Ph.D. from the University of Maryland School of Nursing.
Cardinale B. Smith, M.D., Ph.D., is an associate professor of medicine in the Division of Hematology and Medical Oncology and the Brookdale Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the director of quality for cancer services at Mount Sinai Health
System. She is a clinician investigator whose research interests include evaluating treatment disparities in cancer care, evaluating the determinants of cancer patients’ quality of care, characterizing barriers to optimal cancer and palliative care, and developing approaches to eliminating those barriers among racial and ethnic minorities. Dr. Smith is a 2013 recipient of a mentored research scholar grant from the American Cancer Society to evaluate the determinants of disparities in the use of palliative care among patients with lung cancer. Additionally, she is a co-investigator on a Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute grant to teach and enable goals of care conversations among oncologists. Dr. Smith has had numerous publications in peer-reviewed journals and is the recipient of the 2014 American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine “Inspiring Hospice and Palliative Medicine Leader under 40” award. She received her M.D. from the Drexel University College of Medicine and Ph.D. from the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
Eric C. Sun, M.D., Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Pain, and Perioperative Medicine and (by courtesy) the Department of Health Research and Policy at Stanford University. His research examines the economics of policies related to chronic pain and preoperative medicine and how physician practice organization affects outcomes and costs. He is an associate editor of Anesthesia and Analgesia. Dr. Sun has conducted studies on regulating pharmaceutical safety and the effect of behind-the-counter/over-the-counter switches on drug use, prices, and health. He received his Ph.D. in business economics from The University of Chicago Booth Graduate School of Business and an M.D. from The University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, after which he then completed his residency in anesthesiology at Stanford University.
Jennifer F. Waljee, M.D., is an associate professor of surgery in the Department of Surgery of the University of Michigan Health Systems. She specializes in hand surgery, reconstructive surgery, and burn surgery. Her research interests are the incorporation of patient experiences into measures of surgical quality and treatment effectiveness and the application of patient-reported outcomes assessment tools into clinical practice. Dr. Waljee is currently an investigator on several federal- and state-funded grants, including work to explore opioid prescribing and consumption following acute injury and the prevention of iatrogenic opioid dependence after surgery. She serves as a co-director of the Michigan Opioid Prescribing Engagement Network, a statewide quality improvement project dedicated to improving pain and opioid-related outcomes following surgical care. Dr. Waljee is a member of the American College of Surgeons, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, the American Society for Surgery of the Hand, and the Plastic Surgery Research Council. She currently serves as the director of the Center for Healthcare Outcomes and Policy at the University of Michigan. She is a member of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Opioid Prescribing Estimates Workgroup. Dr. Waljee received her M.D. from the Emory University School of Medicine and an M.P.H. from the University of Michigan School of Public Health.
Steven J. Weisman, M.D., currently holds the Jane B. Pettit Chair in Pain Management at the Children’s Wisconsin, where he is the medical director of the Jane B. Pettit Pain and Headache Center. In addition, he is a professor of anesthesiology and pediatrics at the Medical College of Wisconsin. Dr. Weisman formerly established and directed pain management programs for children at both the University of Connecticut Health Center and the Yale University School of Medicine. He has completed residency and fellowship training in pediatrics, pediatric hematology–oncology, and anesthesiology. His clinical and research interests focus on the management of postoperative pain in children, exploration of the factors mediating chronic pain in children, and the interface of obesity and chronic pain in children. Dr. Weisman was a member of the American Pain Society, where he served as the chair of the ethics committee.
Previously, he was a liaison representative from the American Academy of Pediatrics to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies on Long-Acting Opioids. Dr. Weisman received his M.D. from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
Charles G. Widmer, D.D.S., is the head of the Division of Facial Pain, Department of Orthodontics, at the University of Florida College of Dentistry. Dr. Widmer’s clinical practice includes differential diagnosis of various facial pain conditions with a limited management focus primarily on masticatory musculoskeletal disorders. His research interests include masticatory muscle motor control mechanisms, the biological basis of masticatory muscle pain, and mechanisms of masticatory muscle injury and repair. Dr. Widmer is currently the principal investigator for a study titled “Assessment of opioid use before and after temporomandibular joint implant surgery.” He recently chaired an intracollege committee to examine the use of opioids for dental and oral surgery and to bring prescribing practices in line with newer treatment options. Dr. Widmer has served as the chair of numerous special emphasis panels for the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research. He is a member of the American Dental Association, the American Dental Education Association, the International Association for Dental Research (including the Neuroscience Group), and the American Association for Dental Research (including as board member in 2000). Dr. Widmer received his D.D.S. from the Emory University School of Dentistry.