Program Faculty

The HELPS Center's faculty represents the strength and uniqueness of the program. Program Director Dr. Adam Levine has 14 years of simulator-based teaching experience and has been recognized for his expertise through local and national education awards. He has helped launch several simulator programs through personal on-site visits and hosting visits to the HELPS Center. He also has served as mentor to several simulator elective and fellowship graduates who have gone on to develop their own simulator-based programs. The director was also assistant medical director of METI and consultant to Immersion Medical.

Who We Are

Adam I. Levine
Dr. Levine has been one of the principle simulator faculty members since 1994 and was named Director of Simulation in 1996. Dr. Levine graduated from the Icahn School of Medicine in 1989, and has since been an extremely important and enthusiastic member of the Mount Sinai community. After completing his internal medicine internship and anesthesiology residency at Mount Sinai in 1993; his last year as chief resident, Dr. Levine stayed on staff in the department of anesthesiology to take an active role in residency education and administration. Dr. Levine excelled in both these roles. Due to his administrative skills, passion, and teaching ability, Dr. Levine was named program director for the residency-training program in the department of anesthesiology in 1996.

Dr. Levine is an educational pioneer who can be credited for single handedly developing and conducting educational programs throughout the Sinai community using simulation. In addition to developing novel simulator-based curriculum to teach our own residents, Dr. Levine readily expanded the educational program by developing courses for medical students and other postgraduate trainees. Named Director of Simulation, Dr. Levine currently develops and conducts basic and clinical science courses for medical students, and many postgraduate physicians including medical, surgical, and pediatric intensive care fellows and residents. He also trains other physicians who are interested in developing courses, teaching, and programming the simulator and other educational devices.

Over the course of his career, Dr. Levine has given regional and national lectures on simulation and its use for education and evaluation. He has also created and participated in simulator-based activities yearly at both the ASA and PGA annual meetings. In addition to using the simulators for education, Dr. Levine developed a program using simulation for competence assessment for independent institutions and state licensing boards. In 2005 Dr. Levine was a member of the ASA workgroup on simulation.

As a testament to his teaching abilities, Dr. Levine has been named outstanding Anesthesiology Attending Teacher three times, has received the award for "Excellence in Teaching" for all four years of medical school from the student body, has received the first annual "Excellence in Teaching" award by the Institute for Medical Education, was named alumni member of AOA, was named "Honorary Attending of the Year" by the Emergency Medicine Department, and was named "honorable mentioned by the International Anesthesia Research Society teaching Recognition Award in 2006. For his educational efforts during the first year medical students physiology course having created and conducted simulator-based labs for the course, Dr. Levine was awarded joint appointment in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics simulation.

Ethan O. Bryson
Dr. Bryson is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anesthesia at the Icahn School of Medicine and the co-director of the Department of Anesthesiology's HELPS Center.

Dr. Bryson received his M.D. from The Icahn School of Medicine in New York in 2001 where he received the Dr. Joseph R. Jagust Award for Excellence in Anesthesiology. After completing an Internal Medicine internship at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, he returned to Mount Sinai for residency training in anesthesiology. Upon graduation, Dr. Bryson received the Senior Resident Recognition Award for Outstanding Academic Accomplishments during residency. As a supplement to residency training, Dr. Bryson completed a one year fellowship in simulation education at the Mount Sinai HELPS Center.

In accordance with the ACGME Outcome project directives, Dr. Bryson helped develop a system for evaluating residents in the six competencies using the simulated operating room environment. This involved developing a method for evaluating resident competency with patient care, medical knowledge, practice-based learning and improvement, interpersonal and communication skills, professionalism, and the implementation of a systems-based practice. Dr. Bryson served as moderator for the workshop "The Use of Multi-Modality Simulator Exercises to Satisfy ACGME Core Competency Assessment of the Anesthesiology Resident" during the Society for Education in Anesthesia Meeting in Washington D.C.

Dr. Bryson currently serves as instructor for a number of simulator-based courses at the center including the simulation-based oral board prep course that he helped develop for senior residents and attending physicians and has published extensively on the utilization of simulation in medical education. Dr. Bryson served as a guest editor for the special issue on simulation of the Journal of Critical Care published June 2008. His current research involves the effect of emotional content on memory and the retention of protocols taught in the simulated environment.

Samuel DeMaria Jr
Dr. DeMaria is a current resident in the Department of Anesthesiology. He earned his degree from UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in 2006 where he was inducted into both AOA and the Gold Humanism Society and received the UMDNJ Academic Achievement Award. After completing his internship at Saint Barnabas Medical Center, where he was named Transitional Intern of the Year, he started his anesthesiology residency at the Mount Sinai Medical Center.

Since arriving at Mount Sinai, Dr. DeMaria has had the distinction of being the first resident named to the newly launched Residency Research Scientist Training Program. His research projects are based in the simulation center and involve novel approaches to medical education and the use of simulation to detect and prevent medical errors. Dr. DeMaria also participates as volunteer faculty for the medical student physiology course problem-based learning discussions as well as the anesthesiology clerkships, where he holds regular simulation sessions.

Chad Epps
Dr. Epps serves as a guest faculty at the annual New York Anesthesiology Review sponsored by Mount Sinai. He received his B.S. in Biology from Augusta College and M.D. from the Medical College of Georgia. He completed an internship in Internal Medicine at the University of Florida before continuing his training in Anesthesiology at Mount Sinai. Dr. Epps also served as a fellow in Human Simulation and remained on staff at Mount Sinai's Department of Anesthesiology prior to accepting a faculty appointment at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Dr. Epps has extensive experience working in human simulation and the development of simulation curricula for education and assessment of physicians, medical students, nurses, and other allied health practitioners. He holds many professional memberships including the American Society of Anesthesiologists and Society for Simulation in Healthcare.

Brigid Flynn
Dr. Flynn is an Assistant Professor in anesthesiology at Mount Sinai Medical Center where she works as an anesthesiologist and intensivist in the Cardiothoracic Surgical Intensive Care Unit (CSICU).

Dr. Flynn received her medical degree from the University of Kansas and completed her residency in anesthesiology at the University of Virginia. Following residency, she completed a Critical Care fellowship at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital specializing in both surgical and cardiothoracic intensive care.

New to the simulation faculty, Dr. Flynn is interested in advocating mechanisms of effective communication during medical crisis with the use of simulator scenarios. Dr. Flynn’s other areas of research interests include delirium in CSICU patients and outcome predictors in vascular surgery patients.

Cheryl Gooden
Dr. Gooden is an Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology and Pediatrics, who completed her undergraduate education at the University of Pennsylvania with B.S. /B.A. and earned her medical degree from Temple University. Dr. Gooden completed her anesthesiology training at St. Luke's/Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York and her pediatric anesthesia fellowship at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. As a PALS Instructor, Dr. Gooden has taught numerous PALS courses over the past fourteen years and started teaching in the center using the pediatric and newborn simulators.

For the last 2 years, Dr. Gooden has used a pediatric simulator to teach concepts and crisis management of pediatric thoracic cases in Dr. Edmond Cohen's "Thoracic Anesthesia Workshop" at the American Society of Anesthesiologists and Postgraduate Assembly in Anesthesiology Meetings.