Before and After Sepsis: Opportunities for Change (CE Session)

David Carlbom, MD, is Medical Director, Respiratory Care Department and Attending Physician in the Medical and Trauma-Surgical Intensive Care Units at Harborview Medical Center. He is an Associate Professor of Medicine, Pulmonary Critical Care and Sleep Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of Washington School of Medicine. 

Dr. Carlbom’s passion is in early recognition and early resuscitation of critically ill patients. He is actively involved in leadership and teaching activities at the local, regional, and international level. He is a major resource for sepsis resuscitation and pre-ICU critical care expertise at UW Medicine. He lectures extensively and works systematically to identify and initiate rapid treatment of critically ill sepsis patients. In 2020, he was awarded the individual Global Sepsis Award in recognition for his commitment to educating others about sepsis.  His bias is “good people trying hard, of any educational level, can take great care of critically ill patients if they work as a team, communicate, and have compassion for humans.” 

Fatima Sheikh, MSc, PhD(c) (She/Her) is a PhD Candidate in the Health Research Methodology program at McMaster University. Her research focuses on understanding how social determinants of health influence both the incidence and outcomes of critical illnesses. She also explores how these determinants shape healthcare delivery, with the goal of informing equitable health policies, responsible evidence use, and inclusive care practices. Fatima’s academic foundation includes a master’s thesis centered on equity, diversity, and inclusion, in which she investigated how gender and ethnicity affect N95 respirator fit among a diverse group of Canadian healthcare workers. In addition to her academic work, Fatima holds a role in the Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Human Rights department at Hamilton Health Sciences. In this role, she leads collaborative initiatives with communities, patients, and regional partners to design and implement processes for collecting sociodemographic data and advancing equity, inclusion, and anti-racism across the organization. At the core of Fatima’s work is a commitment to understanding how social and structural factors shape health and disease, their systemic implications, and the power of cross-sector collaboration to drive meaningful change.

Hailey Bain is a sepsis survivor from Toronto, Canada. Her sepsis experience was derived from appendicitis being misdiagnosed at 23 years old, which has led her to be passionate about patient advocacy and sharing her experience to improve outcomes for sepsis patients. Currently, she is a Patient Partner at Sepsis Canada and an active member of their Patient Advisory Council. Hailey also has a professional background in Human Resources across various industries and is currently pursuing a certificate program on Critical Care and Sepsis Health Research. 

Catherine Hough, MD, MSc, is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Medicine at Oregon Health and Science University. Her clinical and scientific expertise focuses on improving outcomes of patients with critical illness and injury. She is active in epidemiologic research, clinical trials, and implementation science, both during and after critical care.

Dr. Hough has served as Principal Investigator (PI) for the NIH NHLBI Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome Clinical Trials Network and the current NIH NHLBI Prevention and Early Treatment of Acute Lung Injury (PETAL) Network, with over 10 years of experience with these networks. She has had NIH funding since 2004 to conduct prospective observational and interventional studies in the ICU and post-ICU setting, including ongoing U01/R01 funded projects as multiple PI. She leads a mature and successful research program with a track record of high-quality and successful clinical trials conducted in the intensive care unit and post-ICU. She has been locally and nationally recognized for her mentorship, including her current NHLBI K24 award that has given her the opportunity for further training and protected time to allow stabilization and further growth of her mentoring and leadership in clinical research at OHSU and beyond. Dr. Hough is engaged in multiple research training programs at OHSU, including roles of PI of the OHSU CTSA-funded KL2 program and Executive Committee member of OHSU’s NHLBI-funded Pulmonary T32. She has also served as a standing member of NHLBI’s Mentored Patient-Oriented Research Study Section (MPOR), and on the advisory committees of multiple T32’s (Universities of Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania).

Kristina Rudd, MD, MPH, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Critical Care Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh. She is core faculty in the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Research, Investigation, and Systems Modeling of Acute Illness (CRISMA), and practices clinically as a pulmonary and critical care physician at UPMC Magee Women’s Hospital.

Dr. Rudd’s NIH-funded research program focuses on global sepsis epidemiology and management, with an emphasis on resource-variable settings. Her current work investigates the spatially-patterned, syndemic relationships between social and biologic features that impact an individual’s risk for sepsis. 

Stephanie Parks Taylor, MD, MS, is the J. Griswold and Margery Hopkins Ruth Research Professor of Medicine and the Chief of Hospital Medicine at the University of Michigan. Her research focuses on using rigorous methods to develop and test complex health interventions to improve outcomes for hospitalized patients.  She leads multiple large projects related to improving sepsis outcomes and is known for her work on both early treatment of sepsis and optimizing recovery practices for sepsis survivors.  

John Boyd, MD, received his medical degree from the University of Western Ontario in 1998, trained in Internal Medicine at the University of Western Ontario, and subsequently trained in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at McGill University from 2001-2004. His Postdoctoral Fellowship was at the Meakins Laboratory in Montreal from 2004-2005. He is an Intensivist at the St. Paul’s Hospital ICU and an Investigator at the Institute for Heart + Lung Health.