CLER Field Representatives

Robin C. Newton, MD

Dr. Newton is the Vice President, CLER Field Operations, and is responsible for training and supervising CLER Field Representatives and volunteer site visitors. She also assists with protocol development, publication of findings, and conducts CLER site visits at ACGME-accredited Sponsoring Institutions. Prior to joining the ACGME, Dr. Newton served as the associate vice president for clinical affairs and quality at Howard University, where she managed and oversaw the quality and patient safety initiatives of the full range of clinical, educational, research, and administrative activities attendant to the Howard University Health Sciences, inclusive of the Howard University Hospital (HUH). During her tenure at Howard University, Dr. Newton also served as the designated institutional official for nine years. Dr. Newton served on the Institutional Review Committee of the ACGME and on the Group on Resident Affairs Steering Committee of the Association of American Medical Colleges. She is a past winner of the ACGME’s coveted Parker J. Palmer Courage to Lead Award.

Dr. Newton received her medical degree from Howard University College of Medicine in 1983, and is board certified in internal medicine. After completing her residency in internal medicine, she joined the staff at DC General Hospital, where she spent several years as a hospitalist involved in quality improvement projects and teaching medical students and residents. During her 18-year tenure at the hospital, she assumed many leadership positions culminating in being named Chief Medical Officer of the DC Public Benefit Corporation, which at that time included the District’s 10 public health clinics, the school health program, and DC General Hospital.

Jose Zayas, DO

Dr. Jose Zayas completed his undergraduate education at the University of Florida prior to attending medical school at Michigan State University, College of Osteopathic Medicine (1997). He completed his pediatric residency at Miami Children’s Hospital (2001) after completing an osteopathic internship (1998). He is board certified in pediatrics and a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) since 2001.

Dr. Zayas began his career as a general pediatrician in private practice while also serving his community as an emergency room physician and developmental pediatrician, before focusing on an academic medical career. In 2005, he became the first academic pediatric hospitalist at the University of Florida, College of Medicine-Jacksonville. There he served as the Pediatric Residency Program Director from July 2009-September 2016. Prior to this, he served as the Curriculum Director and as an Associate Program Director. He has developed expertise in the design of web-based platforms for medical education and health care efficiency, and has continued interests in the psychology of change and difficult conversations in health care.

Dr. Zayas has been active with a number of professional organizations, including the Association of Pediatric Program Directors, the Florida Chapter of the AAP, and the AAP Section of Hospital Medicine. He has won numerous awards for excellence in medical education, for his contributions to pediatric hospital medicine, and for his work in the area of difficult conversations, including the use of simulation.

Matthew Brown, MD

Dr. Brown is a board-certified family physician with more than 26 years of clinical practice in the breadth of patient and family issues. He is an educator acknowledged for designing learning plans that are individualized and collaborative. His experiences include risk, regulatory compliance, and process and patient-centered quality improvement.

Prior to joining the ACGME, Dr. Brown served as the designated institutional official for a multi-hospital system in Chicago for several years. Before that, he had provided leadership as a clinical medical faculty member, residency program director, and chief medical officer.

Dr. Brown completed his undergraduate and medical degrees from the University of Iowa, and his residency at MacNeal Family Medicine Residency in Berwyn, Illinois, affiliated with the Rush University School of Medicine.

Robin Dibner, MD

Passionate about patient safety, Dr. Dibner has been active in the development of the Near Miss Registry, a joint effort of New York APDIM and the New York chapter, and more recently national, ACP. She has given workshops at national ACGME and APDIM meetings on involving medical trainees in quality improvement projects, and has been the recipient of two grants to study the impact of educating residents on medical errors.

Dr. Dibner’s professional accomplishments in New York have also included developing an on-site job fair model for “orphan residents” displaced by hospital and residency program closings, and collaborating with the New York University Department of Medicine to accommodate residents and medical students displaced by Hurricane Sandy.

Dr. Dibner received her medical degree from the Wayne State University School of Medicine. She did her post-graduate training in internal medicine and chief medical residency at St. Luke’s Hospital (now St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center), and her rheumatology fellowship at the SUNY Downstate Health Science Center, all in New York City.

Gary Gray, DO

Before joining the ACGME, Dr. Gray was the chief executive officer at Natividad Medical Center in Salinas, California. His previous roles at Natividad were chief medical officer, designated institutional official, and program director of the family medicine residency. Dr. Gray was formerly on the residency faculty and director of Pre-Doctoral Education for the Department of Family Medicine at Georgetown University School of Medicine in Washington, DC. Following his residency, he was in the US Army Medical Corps at the former Fort Ord in Monterey County, California. Upon completing his military service, he was a part-time residency faculty member and worked in private practice in Denver, Colorado.

Dr. Gray has served on multiple governing boards, including the California Association of Public Hospitals, the California Healthcare Safety Net Institute, Beta Healthcare Group, and the Central California Alliance for Health.

He completed the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s Patient Safety Executive Development Program and is board certified by the American Board of Family Medicine. He received his Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine degree from the Des Moines University College of Osteopathic Medicine and completed a residency in family medicine at Womack Army Medical Center in Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

John O’Brien, MD, FACP

Dr. O’Brien joined the ACGME after more than 20 years at Cook County Health in Chicago, Illinois, including the last 15 as the department chair for Graduate Medical Education and designated institutional official. In that role he championed the residents’ and fellows’ roles in patient safety, serving on the hospital’s Safety Event Review Team. He also worked with the residents, fellows, and attending physicians to improve physician communication, and served as the co-chair of the Patient Experience Committee for the Cook County Health Care System. His other professional areas of interest include improving the diversity of the health care team and bringing greater focus to the Quadruple Aim of better patient outcomes, greater patient satisfaction with the system, improved wellness of the providers, and lower health care costs.

Dr. O’Brien received his undergraduate degree from Northwestern University and his medical degree from the University of Illinois in Chicago, and completed his residency in internal medicine at Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, Illinois.

Mukta Panda, MD, MACP, F-RCP London

Dr. Panda is an award-winning physician, speaker, educator, facilitator, and leader whose work seeks to transform the heart of health care organizations, patient care, and medical education. Prior to joining the ACGME, she served as professor of Medicine and assistant dean for Well-Being and Medical Student Education at the University of Tennessee College of Medicine Chattanooga. Her prior roles include program director of the Transitional Year Program and chair of the Department of Medicine in Chattanooga. Dr. Panda has been inducted as a Master of the American College of Physicians and a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians for her notable contributions to teaching, outstanding work in clinical medicine through research, practice, contributions to preventive medicine, patient safety, and quality, improvements in the delivery of health care and health care disparities, and contributions to the medical literature. She works internationally, nationally, regionally, and locally on her interests of educational methods and curricula, health and well-being, fatigue, stress and burnout prevention in health care professionals, spirituality, and empathy in health care, and contributes nationally in leadership roles.

Dr. Panda is a trained facilitator and coach. She co-facilitates the annual ACGME Courage to Teach and Lead retreat, as well as regular retreats and peer coaching for health care professionals, including residents and fellows.

Dr. Panda grew up in India and has studied and practiced in India, London, and Saudi Arabia before redoing her residency in internal medicine at University of Tennessee College of Medicine Chattanooga and a general medicine fellowship at the University of North Carolina.

She is the author of three books, including the award-winning Resilient Threads: Weaving Joy and Meaning into Well-Being. Her writing and publications focus on educational and curricular development, spirituality in medicine, addressing fatigue and stress, promoting well-being and belonging, and cocreating psychological safety and relational trust for health care professionals and organizations. Dr. Panda proudly identifies as a mother, grandmother, daughter, and friend. To rejuvenate, she likes to take long walks, cook Indian meals, and plan surprise parties for her loved ones. 

Douglas E. Paull, MD, MS, FACS, FCCP, CHSE

Dr. Paull graduated from Duke University with degrees in zoology and medicine. He completed general surgical training at the New York Hospital Cornell Medical Center and cardiothoracic surgical training at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He received his Master’s degree in patient safety leadership from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Dr. Paull is a veteran of the US Air Force, and was an Assistant Professor of Surgery at Wright State University School of Medicine and the VA Medical Center in his hometown of Dayton, Ohio. Since 2008, he has worked at the VA National Center for Patient Safety, sequentially as Co-Director of Medical Team Training, Director of Patient Safety Curriculum, Director of Medical Simulation, Senior Medical Officer/Deputy Director, and Acting Chief Officer. He is the author of articles, chapters, and a book on the topics of surgery, patient safety, team training, simulation, and high-reliability health care organizations. Dr. Paull is also an Adjunct Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine at Georgetown University School of Medicine, where he teaches graduate-level courses in patient safety leadership.

Melissa Schori , MD, FACP, MBA

Dr. Schori previously worked at Lincoln Medical Center in the Bronx, New York, where she was the Chief Medical Officer. She is board certified in internal medicine and has had extensive experience in patient safety, quality initiatives, Joint Commission accreditation compliance, and ACGME program compliance. She served as chair of the Hospital Wide Performance Improvement Committee and as co-chair of the Graduate Medical Education Committee. Her areas of interest include reducing health care disparities, developing patient navigation programs to increase cancer screening, implementing best practices to reduce asthma hospitalizations and ED utilization, and implementing best practice patient safety initiatives.

Dr. Schori received her medical degree from Cornell University Medical College, and completed her post-graduate training in internal medicine at the New York Hospital. She received her MBA from the Hagen School of business of Iona College.

Elizabeth Wedemeyer , MD

Dr. Wedemeyer comes to the ACGME from Columbia University Medical Center in New York, New York. Her most recent position was program director for the pediatric residency program at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, Columbia campus for over 20 years. She is a board-certified pediatrician and a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Association of Pediatric Program Directors. During her tenure at New York Presbyterian Hospital, Dr. Wedemeyer served in multiple roles in LCME and GME activities, including chairing the Graduate Medical Education Committee at the Columbia campus between 2007 and 2009. As residency program director, Dr. Wedemeyer led residency program innovations in fostering a quality improvement curriculum in the ambulatory setting, and developed monthly floor-based multidisciplinary rounds that focused on the errors reported through the hospital’s online medical event reporting system. She also served as a physician leader in hospital projects in reducing length of stay and earlier discharge times for inpatients.

Dr. Wedemeyer received her undergraduate degree from Yale University and her medical degree from George Washington University School of Medicine. She did her post-graduate training in pediatrics and chief medical residency at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, DC.

Martha Wright, MD

Dr. Wright is a pediatric emergency medicine physician with special expertise in medical education for health professions. She was a professor in the Department of Pediatrics at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland, Ohio. Dr. Wright has an extensive background in graduate medical education, in which she held various leadership roles.

Dr. Wright received her MD from Duke University School of Medicine, and completed her residency in pediatrics and chief residency in pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital National Medical Center in Washington, DC. She then completed a fellowship in pediatric emergency medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, South Carolina. Dr. Wright also earned a Master’s degree in Medical Education for Health Professionals at the University of Cincinnati in Cincinnati, Ohio. Throughout her career, Dr. Wright has received numerous awards for teaching and distinguished service to her profession. She has many publications on various topics in pediatrics, including peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. Her research has ranged from safety issues to medical illnesses in pediatrics.

James Zaidan, MD, MBA

Dr. Zaidan received his undergraduate degree from the Pennsylvania State University, his medical degree from West Virginia University and his MBA from Emory University. He completed his anesthesiology training and his cardiac anesthesia fellowship at the Massachusetts General Hospital. After serving a tour of duty with the US Army in Landstuhl, Germany, he and his family moved to Atlanta, where he most recently was the Associate Dean for Graduate Medical Education/designated institutional official and Professor of Anesthesiology at Emory University School of Medicine. He is currently a professor and Chair Emeritus.

Dr. Zaidan served as the Deputy Chair for Education and as the Chief of Service at Grady Memorial and Emory University Hospitals. He was a Senior Associate Examiner for the American Board of Anesthesiology, the Chair of the Board of Directors of the Foundation for Anesthesiology Education and Research of the American Society of Anesthesiology and President of the Association of Cardiac Anesthesiology. Dr. Zaidan was the Chair of the Department of Anesthesiology from 2001 to 2011 and the Associate Dean for Graduate Medical Education and designated institutional official from 2000 to 2016. Dr. Zaidan received the ACGME’s Courage to Lead Award. He recently completed a six-year term on the ACGME’s Institutional Review Committee and served as its Vice Chair for two years.