Our program is having a bittersweet moment: the end of an absolutely wonderful (and stressful) year. We have seen an intern class start growing into amazing doctors, but we also said goodbye to our first graduating class. The Brandon Regional Hospital Emergency Medicine Graduating Class of 2021 have all accepted positions for post-residency life. Five of our graduates secured fellowships in critical care medicine, emergency ultrasound, and simulation. Two of our graduates have joined the ranks of our amazing attending physicians here at Brandon Regional Hospital. The other eight physicians have accepted positions in ERs across the country, including Alabama, New Jersey, Texas, California, Virginia and Florida. We all wish them luck in their future endeavors and on their board exams.

We have accrued many wonderful faculty in our program over the last few months. Most recently, we welcomed Dr. Rafael Colon-Hernandez, who is a board-certified emergency physician and fellowship-trained in hyperbaric medicine. This just adds to the star-studded lineup of amazing faculty physicians that we already have.

Our program is very excited to welcome our incoming interns, the Class of 2024. They are a fantastic group and will surely do very well with us at BRH! We also continue to have wonderful additions to our academic calendar. This year, we will be adding a “Critical Care Corner,” more simulations in our hospital’s own simulation room (and at the state-of-the-art simulation facility), and much more! We also continue to have tons of new research and quality improvement projects being started.

Lastly, the chief residents this year, Drs. Cecilio Padron, Brian Szczucki and myself, are all very thankful for each of our resident colleagues, our wonderful faculty, our program director and associate program directors, and our lovely program coordinators. This program’s success is certainly due to the comradery that we all have with each other. 

Congratulations to the Class of 2021:

Ali Al-Marzoog, MD
Attending, Mon Health Medical Center
Morgantown, WV

Melissa Bacci, MD
Critical Care Medicine Fellowship, Univ. of Pittsburgh Medical Center
Pittsburgh, PA

Ricki Brown-Forestiere, MD
Attending, Brandon Regional Hospital
Brandon, FL

Andrew Glickman, DO
Attending, Brandon Regional Hospital
Brandon, FL

Natalya Grigoryan, MD
Attending, Kaiser Permanente
Los Angeles, CA

Patrick Hsu, DO
Attending, Brandon Regional Hospital
Brandon, FL

Rashmi Jadhav, MD
Simulation Fellowship, Georgetown Univ.
Washington, D.C.

Roli Kushwaha, MD
Attending, Hackensack Riverview Medical Center
Hackensack, NJ

Meredith Marlow, DO
Attending, Decatur Morgan Hospital
Decatur, AL

Bryce McClure, DO
Ultrasound Fellowship, UF
Jacksonville, FL

Ryan Ngo, MD
Attending, Baylor University Medical Center
Houston, TX

Rachel Oliver, MD
Attending, Memorial Hospital
Jacksonville, FL

Alex Prestley, MD
Attending, St. Francis Hospital
Roslyn, NY

Keyon Shakroneh, DO
Ultrasound Fellowship, Univ. of Massachusetts
Boston, MA

Caroline Shepherd, DO
Ultrasound Fellowship, Univ. of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA