The MedConference 2016

Claudia Beghé, MD, FACP

Claudia Beghé, MD, is Associate Chief of Staff for Palliative, Geriatrics and Extended Care at the James A. Haley Veterans Administration, in Tampa, FL. Her academic affiliation is with the University of South Florida, also in Tampa, at the Associate Professor level.

She received her medical degree at the Universitá Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Rome, Italy, and completed her residency in internal medicine and a fellowship in medical genetics at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson.

Dr Beghé’s scholar activities have dealt with preventive medicine, the physician/patient relationship, diabetes, HIV/AIDS, anemia, medical education and geriatric care. She has authored or coauthored several publications in these areas.

She has been a member of the local Ethics Committee for over 20 years.

She is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and Member of the American Medical Association, the Society for General Internal Medicine, the American Geriatric Society, and the American Academy on Physician and Patient.

Dr Beghé has been listed as one of “America’s Best Doctors” uninterruptedly since 2001.

Enrico Grugnetti, RN

Enrico Grugnetti is a Registered Nurse in Florida. He works in the Home Care Program for MCCI Group Holding taking care of elderly in their home setting. The main goal of his activity is to provide continuity of care for patients, as an intermediary between Primary Care Physicians, hospital and other medical and social care providers. The large majority of his patients are elderly who suffer from unstable chronic illnesses.

Grugnetti received his Nursing License in Italy in 1995. He worked for 7 years in the Cardiac-surgery department in Torino, Italy, as RN and as Head Nurse for a year. In 2002 he started his own activity in home care in Milan, Italy, first as a visiting nurse and then as a Nurse Manager. In 2008 he moved to the US, where he obtained RN Florida License.

Mariane Hamel, B.Sc.P.T., FCAMT

Mariane Hamel obtained her Bachelor of Science in Physical Therapy in 1987 after an exotic experience at an orphanage in Zimbabwe as a medical aid. She then went on to work in sports therapy as the physiotherapist for the Grands Ballets Canadiens. Subsequently she passed her board exam and became Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Manual and Manipulative Therapy. From 1995-1998 she was clinical instructor at McGill in Orthopaedics. In 2004 she opened her own practice and in 2011 she started clinical teaching at Montreal University in a new postgraduate program in perineal therapy.

Jonathan Imber

Jonathan B. Imber is Jean Glasscock Professor of Sociology. Prior to that he was the Class of 1949 Professor in Ethics. His research is both sociological and historical, addressing the moral and ethical foundations of modern medicine and the role that religious authority has played in defining the medical vocation. His book, Trusting Doctors: The Decline of Moral Authority in American Medicine, published in 2008, examines how physicians acquired a revered place among all modern professions. His present work focuses on the rise in recent years of what has come to be called religious bioethics, represented in all the major faith traditions. He has also edited numerous books on a variety of sociological topics, including philanthropy, therapeutic culture, science policy, and the relationship between markets and religion.

Professor Imber taught Classical Sociological Theory for many years as well as Global Health and Social Epidemiology. At the introductory level, he has regularly taught Social Problems of Youth. In more recent years he has developed several new courses, including Celebrity, Fame, and Fortune, The Sociology of Conservatism, and the forthcoming first-year seminar, “So You Want to Be a Doctor.” He has worked with students on various independent studies and honors theses on such topics as the epidemiology of nutrition, the public controversy over abortion, and bioethics and religion.

Jonathan Imber has been editor-in-chief of Society since 1998, and before that he was editor of The American Sociologist and co-editor of Qualitative Sociology. These professional responsibilities have enabled him to maintain a close view of new research and commentary from scholars across all the social science disciplines, both young and established.

Elena and Patrick Kilner

Pat and Elena live in Rockville, MD where Pat runs a real estate business and Elena is a homemaker. In 2011, their fifth child, John Paul, was born with SMA (Spinal Muscular Atrophy) Type 1. After spending the first three month of his life in the NICU, John Paul came home to live with his family until he passed away in February of 2013. During John Paul's life, Pat and Elena learned how to be advocates for their son's many needs in dealing with the medical specialties of all varieties.

Michelle R Lawson, RN, BSN

Michelle Lawson is a bedside RN in the Neonatal ICU at Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital in New York City. Her education includes bachelor degrees in Psychology from St. Joseph's University and Nursing from Columbia University. Michelle is currently working on a Masters of Nursing in Pediatric Health at Stonybrook University. Her passions include exercise, health, and travel.

Julien Leduc, RN

Julien Leduc completed his studies in nursing at the university of Montreal, Canada in 2009 and since he has been working at the Notre-Dame Hospital in Montreal in the department of neurosurgery as a registered nurse. In 2011 he attended a training course of neurosurgical intensive care unit. Currently he is an assistant head nurse and trains first year nursing students during their internships.

Chiara Mezzalira, MD

Chiara Mezzalira graduated Medical School in 1972 and completed her pediatric residency in 1975 at the University of Milan, Italy. In 1979 she attended a course in Tropical Medicine at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and in 1983 she completed also her fellowship in Neonatology at the University of Milan.

Her work experience includes mainly medical practice as pediatrician in Africa, with very short intervals of pediatric practice in Italy in the area of Milan. Her African experience includes 5 years in Kitgum, North Uganda, at St. Joseph’s Hospital, in the 70’s, in time of war. In the 80-90’ she worked in Lagos, Nigeria for a project supported by AVSI, a non-governative organization. There she started a Primary Health Care Centre in the suburban areas of Lagos and remained there up to 2008.

She took part in several ‘emergency missions’ in Rwanda, south Sudan, Haiti, mainly collaborating with AVSI projects.

Since 2012 she has been in North Burundi, as Director of the Pediatric department of the Hospital of Ngozi, which has a capacity of 332 beds. Besides her clinical work she has been obviously involved in administrative tasks, in educational and scientific collaboration with the University of Lagos, The National Institute of Medical Research and other international institutions.

Maria Letizia Morini

Maria Letizia Morini is a 23 years old young lady with Down syndrome. She was born in Pesaro, a small town in Italy. Since the age of ten, she has been taking pictures because she says "the places I see are beautiful". Her family took her desire seriously and bought her a real camera and for years Letizia has been capturing beautiful and unique moments which turn into beautiful pictures. Her many friends, struck by the beauty of her photos, encouraged her to have an exhibit. The local town government supported her and the exhibit was done to raise funds for the Jerome Lejeune Foundation, so that "research maybe done to help people like me". Letizia lives at home in Pesaro with her parents and works at the private nursery school, which she herself attended as a kid, as a teacher's aid. Her two older sisters are now married but are still actively fighting, along with their respective husbands, as to who will get to have Letizia live with them once their parents are gone. Letizia has the diagnosis of Down Syndrome but that's not what defines her. She is a daughter, a sister, an aunt, a friend to many and an amazing photographer.

Brittany Smith, RN

Brittany Smith grew up on Long Island New York. She went to nursing school at Binghamton University directly after high school, and upon graduation in 2011 started her first NICU nursing job at Stony Brook University Hospital. After working at Stony Brook for almost 2 years, she wanted to move into the city to expand her knowledge and experience as a NICU nurse. She applied to MSCHONY, and has been there since February 2013. She has been enjoying taking care of critically ill babies, she learned a lot and she is looking forward to learning more as the years go on.

Brad Stuart, MD

Brad is co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of ACIStrategies. With more than 35 years of experience practicing internal medicine, palliative care and hospice, and as a healthcare innovator with a national reputation, he has a career-long commitment to improving clinical and economic outcomes by promoting dignity, choice and responsibility. He created the first Advanced Illness Management (AIM) program in the US with a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in 1999, shepherded its growth over a decade at Sutter Health, and spearheaded the proposal that earned AIM a $13 million award in 2010 from the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation. Brad drove AIM’s growth and development into a national model now adopted by the American Hospital Association and many US health systems and championed by the Coalition to Transform Advanced Care (C-TAC), where he is a founding Board member. For over 10 years Brad has focused on delivery system redesign, specializing in outcome and financial metrics and analytics, physician and staff training, and value-driven cost reduction in advanced illness. A graduate of Stanford University School of Medicine, he was named to the 2013 HealthLeaders’ Media list of Top 20 national difference-makers and was profiled in Atlantic Monthly. He was named 2007 Physician of the Year by the California Association of Health Services at Home. Brad speaks internationally on clinical, economic and spiritual issues in advanced illness.

Laura Toso, MD

Dr. Toso received her medical Degree with honors from the University of Milan-Bicocca in Milan, Italy. She then moved to the US to work as a post-doc fellow at the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, MD doing research on prevention of mental retardation in Down syndrome, fetal alcohol syndrome and cerebral palsy. She completed her Residency training in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the George Washington University in Washington DC. She is interested in comprehensive women's care and especially high-risk obstetrics. Dr. Toso is married with three children.

Marcello Villanova, MD

Marcello Villanova is a neurologist who graduated from medical school and completed his residency in neurology at the University of Siena, Italy. He spent the following 5 years involved in research programs in several cities national and international, including the US. In Newark, NJ he worked with Professor John Bach, where he came to know about non-invasive methods to improve length and quality of life for patients with neuromuscular diseases.

Currently, Dr Villanova is the Director of a Neuromuscular Rehabilitation Unit located at Nigrisoli, associated with the Hospital of Bologna, Italy, where he has been following more than 500 patients per year, all affected by genetic disorders.

Miguel L. Zialcita, MD

Miguel Zialcita, is a Board Certified Adult Neurologist with 14 years experience treating patients for a variety of neurologic conditions. His areas of interest include seizure disorders and neurologic disease in the elderly. He also performs electrophysiologic tests (EMG-NCV) for the diagnosis of certain disorders of the peripheral nervous system - e.g. carpal tunnel syndrome, etc.

He originally graduated from medical school in the Philippines – where the latest technologies are either not available or not affordable. Thus he has been especially committed in employing the best of his clinical abilities (i.e. by taking a thorough history and performing a careful neurologic examination) in diagnosing his patients and in determining the appropriate management for their neurologic condition.