2024 GME Summit Speakers
Laney McDougal, MS-HSM
Laney McDougal, MS-HSM joined the ACGME in April 2020 as the Director of Medically Underserved Areas/Populations and Graduate Medical Education, in the Department of Sponsoring Institutions and Clinical Learning Environments and the Department of Accreditation, Recognition, and Field Activities. She leads the ACGME’s efforts to advance graduate medical education (GME) that addresses health and healthcare in medically underserved areas and populations and oversees the programmatic unit of the ACGME that coordinates these efforts.
Ms. McDougal received her MS degree in Health Systems Management from Rush University, and her BA in Intercultural Studies from University of Northwestern-St. Paul. In her prior role as Director of Accreditation and Improvement in the Office of Integrated Medical Education at Rush University Medical Center, she implemented oversight structures to monitor compliance with ACGME requirements and served as an Institutional Coordinator and accreditation resource. Ms. McDougal has nine years of experience in GME administration and has worked in both dermatology and internal medicine residency programs and led several GME process improvement initiatives.
Judith Pauwels, MD
Judith Pauwels, MD is a Family Physician and Professor Emeritus at the University of Washington in Seattle. In addition to full-spectrum family medicine, her career focused on graduate medical education, including 16 years as program director at the UW Family Medicine and Tacoma Family Medicine Programs. For the next 12 years she served the UW WWAMI Family Medicine Network in new program development, financial benchmarking of residency programs, and institutional accreditation.
Dr. Pauwels continues to pursue her passion for the development of primary care workforce as a consultant with HRSA as part of the Technical Assistance Center for both the Rural Residency and Teaching Health Center Program Development grants, as well as over 20 years of work for the AAFP Residency Program Solutions Consultant Panel.
Suzanne Allen, MD, MPH
As the Vice Dean for Academic, Rural and Regional Affairs at the University of Washington School of Medicine (UWSOM), Suzanne Allen works broadly across academic and regional affairs to enhance the excellence of medical education for the UWSOM and the five-state WWAMI (Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho) region. WWAMI started in 1971 and is accredited through the University of Washington School of Medicine to provide publicly supported medical education for citizens of the participating states. WWAMI medical students complete the classroom phase of the curriculum in their home state and their required and elective clinical rotations at locations across the five-state region.
In addition to serving as the Vice Dean for Academic, Rural and Regional Affairs, Dr. Allen holds a Clinical Professor faculty position within the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine. Dr. Allen is an attending physician at Full Circle Health Family Medicine Residency, Boise and an active physician in the Department of Family Medicine at Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center and Saint Luke’s Medical Center located in Boise, Idaho.
Alan Douglass, MD
Dr. Douglass is a Clinical Professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. Prior to moving west he spent 31 years at Middlesex Health in Middletown, Connecticut where he was the long-time Family Medicine Residency Director and ACGME Designated Institutional Official. He received his medical degree from the University of Connecticut. He completed his residency in Family Medicine at Middlesex Hospital and Faculty Development Fellowship at Duke University. In addition to board certification in Family Medicine he holds a Certificate of Added Qualification in Hospice and Palliative Medicine. He serves the discipline as a Consultant with AAFP Residency Program Solutions (RPS), Academic Council member of the National Institute for Program Director Development (NIPDD), and Technical Advisor for HRSA Teaching Health Center and Rural Residency Program Development grant recipients.
Rob Stenger, MD, MPH
John Andazola, MD
John Andazola, M.D., FAAFP, is DIO at Memorial Medical Center in Las Cruces, New Mexico. He was the past Program Director of the Southern New Mexico Family Medicine Residency Program and is the current Program Director for Hidalgo Medical Services in Silver City, New Mexico. He received his M.D. from the University of New Mexico School of Medicine. He completed his Family Medicine residency at the Southern New Mexico Family Medicine Residency Program, a fellowship in Advanced Hospital Training for Family Physicians in Phoenix, and a Faculty Development Fellowship at the University of Arizona.
Dr. Andazola has been involved in academic medicine his entire career and has presented at numerous local, state, and national conferences. He has authored several book chapters and peer reviewed publications. He is founding President of the New Mexico Primary Care Training Consortium, Past President of the New Mexico Academy of Family Physicians, and a board member of Center for Health Innovation (New Mexico's Public Health Institute). He has been appointed by the Secretary of Human Services to Chair of the Graduate Medical Expansion Board for the state of New Mexico. He was recently appointed board to the Rural Medical Training Collaborative (RMTC, formally the RTT collaborative). He is dedicated to improving the health of the communities he serves by increasing equity, inter-professional training, and social accountability in medical education.
Dr. Andazola has numerous state and national awards that recognize his contributions to public service, and to the community.
Sue Skillman, MS
Susan M. Skillman, MS, is the Senior Deputy Director of the University of Washington Center for Health Workforce Studies. Her research covers a wide array of health workforce topics, including studies of the nursing, primary care, behavioral health, oral health, and allied health workforce; workforce demand across different health care settings; as well as education pathways for different occupations. She advises health workforce planning efforts at the state and national level, is on the advisory board of Washington’s Allied Health Center of Excellence, has served on the planning committees for several national and international conferences, and has held consulting roles with the National Governor’s Association and the Institute of Medicine, among others. She was the co-developer of Washington’s Health Workforce Sentinel Network with Washington’s Workforce Board (now implemented in three states), and collaborated with the Workforce Board on assessments of Washington’s behavioral health workforce. Ms. Skillman directs Washington’s Oral Health Workforce Tracking Program, funded jointly by the State and Delta Dental of Washington. Prior positions included 10 years with the University of Washington’s Department of Health Services and 8 years with the Center for Health Studies at Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound. She graduated from Whitman College and completed graduate education at Washington State University.
John Boston, DO
Ted Epperly, MD
Dr. Epperly is the President and CEO of the Full Circle Health (Formally Family Medicine Residency of Idaho), a large Federally Qualified Teaching Health Center comprised of nine FQHC clinics, four ACGME family medicine residency programs, and five fellowships. He received an undergraduate degree in Biology and Anthropology from Utah State University in 1976. He Graduated from the University of Washington School of Medicine in 1980. Dr. Epperly completed his residency in Family Medicine at Madigan Army Medical Center, Fort Lewis, Washington in 1983. He completed a faculty development fellowship at the University of North Carolina in 1986 and achieved an additional CAQ in Geriatrics. Dr. Epperly retired July 2001 as Colonel after serving 21 years in the United States Army. Dr. Epperly served as the past President and Board Chair of the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP). He is a past member of the ACGME Board of Directors that has responsibility of all residency and fellowship training for over 125,000 residents and fellows of all specialties in the United States and currently is the vice-chair of the ACGME Policy Committee. He currently serves as the Co-Chairman of the Board for the Healthcare Transformation Council of Idaho that is in charge of helping transform healthcare for the State of Idaho. Dr. Epperly is the Graduate Medical Education Coordinator for the State of Idaho and the author of the State of Idaho’s Ten Year GME Plan to build a vibrant and robust GME system for Idaho. Dr. Epperly is a member of multiple other Boards of Directors and the President of several non-profit organizations. He has published over 50 articles and book chapters and he is a staunch supporter of Family Medicine education, research, and both rural and underserved health care. His award-winning book Fractured: America’s Broken Health Care System and What Must Be Done to Heal It provides excellent insight to the U.S healthcare system and can be found on Amazon.com. He and his wife Lindy celebrated their 49th wedding anniversary in September 2023 and have two sons. Outside of medicine, his interests include golf, skiing, fly-fishing, reading and sports memorabilia.
Barb Doty, MD
Dr. Doty is an Alaska WWAMI Medical Education Graduate and longtime practicing Family Physician in Wasilla, Alaska who now serves as the Asst. Clinical Dean for the Alaska WWAMI program. She was a founding member of the Providence Alaska Family Medicine Residency Program design and implementation team, the first GME residency program of any kind in Alaska. She has maintained a longtime interest in rural/frontier physician workforce development and has held various leadership roles with both the Alaska Academy of Family Physicians and the l American Academy of Family Physicians and is a former member of the National Advisory Committee of the federal Office of Rural Health Policy.
Gail Pokorney, MD
Gail Pokorney, MD, FACP, is a board-certified general internist and the Associate Program Director of the newly accredited UW Alaska IM Rural Residency. She received her medical degree from Harvard Medical School and completed her primary care residency at University of California, San Francisco. She started dreaming about primary care in rural Alaska after hearing about the WWAMI program as a medical student, then solidified her interest in rural medicine with an IHS rotation in Gallup, NM while in residency. She came to Soldotna in 2013, fresh out of training, to cover a colleague’s one-year sabbatical…and she enjoyed the work and the community so much that she never left.
During her decade in Soldotna, Dr. Pokorney has embraced the clinical adventures that come with managing a panel of complex primary care patients, interpreting cardiac stress tests, and pulling occasional shifts on the hospitalist service, all while staying active as a member (and chief emeritus) of the local hospital's medical staff and the AK chapter of the ACP. She also serves as the medical director for the hospital's cardiac rehab program and teaches UW third-year medical students and IM residents on WWAMI rotations. A passionate believer in the value that general internists bring to rural communities, she has been working since 2017 to develop an AK-based IM rural training program and is thrilled that the UW AK IM RRP is at last ready to launch.
Outside the office, Dr. Pokorney enjoys hiking, camping, playing the violin, attending community events, and reading novels (when she can stay awake for it). She and her husband Rob, who co-owns a local IT business, are parents to two high-spirited girls who keep them humble and on their toes.
Lilian Ho, MD
Lilian Ho, MD, (she/her) is an Associate Program Director and works primarily with the Primary Care Alaska Track. Clinically, Lilian works as a pediatric hospitalist providing care to infants and children at the Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage, in addition to traveling for pediatric field clinics in Kodiak and Bethel. She also instructs medical students as part of the UW School of Medicine Colleges program. Her professional interests include medical education, medical transports, and career mentorship and coaching. She is a novice skate-skier, intermediate sourdough bread baker, and indoor plant and vegetable gardener. She spends most of her free time photographing adventures with her goldendoodle, Roma (Instagram @alaskadood).
Alexander von Hafften, MD
Dr. von Hafften is a psychiatrist who first trained and worked in Alaska in 1990 as a WWAMI resident from the University of Washington School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Dr. von Hafften provided clinical care in Anchorage, Fairbanks, Gambell, Little Diomede, Nome, Utqiagvik, and White Mountain. Dr. von Hafften returned to Alaska in 1993. Since then, he has been actively involved in undergraduate and graduate medical education.
From 1997 to 2004, Dr. von Hafften was director of the Alaska Psychiatry Residency Education Program (APREP). This was a consortium of the State of Alaska Department of Corrections, Anchorage Community Mental Health Services, and Providence Alaska Medical Center on a mission to continue offering training opportunities for senior psychiatry residents from the University of Washington.
From 2009 to 2015, Dr. von Hafften was Chair of the Alaska Psychiatry Residency Steering Committee. This committee was a coalition of federal agencies, state agencies, the University of Alaska, the University of Washington, Alaska Native health organizations, Alaska hospitals, and Alaska mental health care agencies and clinicians united on a mission to address the critical shortage of psychiatrists in Alaska.
Gordon Riha, MD, FACS
Gordon Riha, MD FACS was raised in Wyoming and Texas. He attended Texas A&M for undergraduate education and then Baylor College of Medicine for medical school. He then proceeded to Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland Oregon for his surgical internship and General Surgery Residency. He continued in Portland for completion of his Surgical Critical Care/Trauma Fellowship. He has been on staff at the Billings Clinic since 2014 where he is the Assistant Trauma Medical Director and executive member of the Billings Clinic Foundation Board. He currently serves as the Site Director for the General Surgery Rural Training Track for both the University of Arizona and the University of Washington where he is a Clinical Assistant Professor at both institutions. In his spare time, Dr. Riha enjoys hunting, fly fishing, Spartan Racing, and "spirited driving" across the vast open highways of Montana.
David Evans, MD
David Evans, MD is a board-certified family physician offering a broad scope of services. For 15 years Dr. Evans practiced at Madras Medical Group where he was active in his community and with organized medicine. In 2012 Dr. Evans joined the faculty of the University of Washington School of Medicine where he is the Rosenblatt Family Endowed Professor in Rural Health and the past Program Director for the UW Family Medicine Residency. Dr. Evans is the recipient of several community service and teaching awards and enjoys living in Seattle, Washington with his wife and two children.
Russell Maier, MD
Dr. Maier is a family physician with over a quarter century of experience in graduate medical education. He taught within a CHC owned program, where he led the program as director for 15 years and served as DIO. During this time the residency increased from 18 to 30 residents, receiving two HRSA Teaching Health Center Grants, and developed a novel three year integrated rural training track. The program was also a leader in developing integrated behavioral health and dramatically increased the diversity of its faculty. He is a technical assistance center advisor to the HRSA funded THCGME development program. He currently serves as Associate Dean for Graduate Medical Education at PNWU College of Osteopathic Medicine and is a Professor in Family Medicine at PNWU as well as Clinical Professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine. He is married to another family physician, has three grown children and three dogs, all of whom he spends time in the outdoors.
Cindy Hamra, JD, MA
Cindy Hamra is Associate Dean for Graduate Medical Education (GME) Office at the University of Washington School of Medicine. In this role, she oversees operational, administrative and finance functions of the GME Office, including setting and implementing strategic direction. The GME Office at the UW School of Medicine oversees clinical training for over 1600 medical and dental residents in fellows in over 200 programs. UW Medicine, through the School of Medicine, is the largest sponsor of GME programs in the five-state WWAMI region (Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho).
Cindy has spent most of her career in higher education, with over twenty years of experience in teaching, training, leadership development and education management. Before joining the University of Washington, Cindy was Associate Director in the Albers School of Business & Economics at Seattle University. Previously, Cindy worked for Kaplan Test Prep, holding several roles. She has a JD and a MA in International Affairs from the American University.
Josh Kern, MD, MBA
An active physician leader with St. Luke’s in Idaho, Joshua Kern, MD, Chief Medical Officer for St. Luke’s Magic Valley, Jerome, and Wood River. He has been with St. Luke’s for 15 years as a primary care physician in both inpatient and outpatient settings.
Dr. Kern also serves as the Program Director of the Magic Valley Rural Program. He completed the National Institute for Program Director Development Fellowship in 2012-2013. Dr. Kern has had leadership roles with the Full Circle Health Magic Valley Family Medicine Residency of Idaho’s Rural Training Track in Jerome and Magic Valley since the inception in 2012.
Originally from Illinois, Dr. Kern received his undergraduate and graduate education at the University of Washington School of Medicine and just completed his EMBA at Boise State University. Married with three children, Dr. Kern enjoys spending time with his family, training for Spartan races, and rock climbing.
John Scott, MD, MAC
John Scott, MD, MSc, FIDSA is a Professor of Medicine (Division of Allergy and Infectious Diseases) and Chief Digital Health Officer at UW Medicine. He graduated from Stanford University with a degree in Human Biology, attended Georgetown University School of Medicine cum laude, completed a residency in Internal Medicine at Stanford University Hospitals, and then obtained sub-specialty training in Infectious Diseases at the University of Washington. He joined the University of Washington faculty in 2005.
In 2009, he launched Project ECHO (Extension for Community Health Outcomes) in Washington State, the first place to replicate the ECHO model outside of New Mexico. This innovative telehealth program helps clinicians serving in rural and underserved areas with the evaluation and treatment of common, complex, chronic diseases. In 2015, he won the Warren Reid Award for excellence in health care for the state of Washington, in recognition of his telehealth work. He chairs the Washington State Telehealth Collaborative and served on the Telehealth committee for the Infectious Disease Society of America. The Washington State Medical Association recognized him with the Grassroots Advocate Award in 2020 for his work in advocating for policy changes for telemedicine at the state and federal level.
In his role as Chief Digital Health Officer, he is focused on Virtual Care Delivery and developing a robust Digital Front Door to bring together UW Medicine’s existing technologies, apps, and other digital services into a simple, single sign-on platform.
Kim Thomas, MD MSPH
Kim Thomas joined the Alaska Family Medicine Residency (AKFMR) as a core faculty member in 2011 and became the Program Director in June 2023. Since 2019, she has been the DIO (Designated Institutional Official) for Providence Alaska Medical Center and is the only DIO in Alaska. She is a member of the ACGME’s Medically Underserved Areas and Populations workgroup.
Kim’s interests in medicine are obstetrics and reproductive health care, full scope family medicine, substance use treatment, LGBTQIA+ care, DEI, social justice, and rural health. She’s lived in Alaska longer than anywhere else. She grew up in Tennessee; attended college and worked in Washington, DC; completed graduate school in public health and medical school in Colorado; and attended residency and worked in Pennsylvania.
She enjoys time inside cooking and time outside with her husband (an orthopedic trauma surgeon) and her two children (one in his first year of college and the other about to start college), especially backpacking, hiking, running, and generally exploring.
Rebecca Volino Robinson
Rebecca Volino Robinson (she/her) is a licensed psychologist with a Ph.D. in Clinical-Community Psychology from the University of Alaska Anchorage. She has gained valuable experience over the past decade, having worked with diverse individuals in various settings in Alaska, including academic, refugee resettlement, tribal health, and primary care settings. Before her current position, Dr. Robinson led the development of a behavioral health service line aimed at increasing and easing access to high-quality, evidence-based care for Alaska Native people while working at the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium.
Currently, Dr. Robinson serves as the Director of Behavioral Health at the Alaska Family Medicine Residency, where she oversees the delivery of integrated behavioral health services at Providence Family Medicine Center and manages the psychiatry and transcultural health rotations for medical residents. Additionally, she is the Co-Director of Training for the Alaska Psychology Internship Consortium. Dr. Robinson’s specialties include trauma psychology, healing-centered program development, and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. She is also a Registered Yoga Teacher with Yoga Alliance and often integrates yoga psychology into her professional practice. Additionally, she holds a certificate in Executive Healthcare Leadership, allowing her to balance the financial and business aspects of clinical operations while prioritizing the needs of both consumers and providers.
On a personal note, Dr. Robinson enjoys traveling in her free time and has visited 50 US states and 12 countries. She is also interested in healthy aging and is working towards visiting each of the original “blue zones” worldwide.