Board Profiles & Staff
The seven-member CIR Policy and Education Initiative Board of Directors consists primarily of physicians who served as past national officers of the Committee of Interns and Residents, the oldest and largest union of resident physicians in the U.S.
CIR Policy and Education Initiative Board Members
Hillary Tompkins, MD
Hillary Tompkins is the President of the board of the CIR Policy & Education Initiative. She completed a GI fellowship at Boston Medical Center in June, 2011 and is now a gastroenterologist at a physician practice in Exeter, NH. A strong advocate for patient and physician rights, Dr. Tompkins has played a critical role in improving resident physician employment standards, education and well-being. A published and award-winning physician, Dr. Tompkins’ research has focused on the pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel disease.
Simon Ahtaridis, MD, MPH
Simon Ahtaridis is the Internal Medicine Service Medical Director at Mercy Medical Center. A passionate healthcare advocate, he served as Legislative Affairs Director for the American Medical Student Association (AMSA) and developed a health policy/advocacy elective for his colleagues as a resident. He has also won numerous awards, including the 2008 and 2009 Cambridge Health Alliance Inpatient Attending Teaching Award. His activist interests are in universal access to care and resident work-hours reform.
Flavio Casoy, MD
Flavio Casoy is proud to join CIR Patient Education Initiative’s Board! He currently works for New York State’s Office of Mental Health as the Medical Director for Admissions at Rockland Psychiatric Center. He is also a Clinical Lecturer in Psychiatry at Columbia University, an Attending Psychiatrist at Lincoln Hospital, and he has a small private practice in the Flatiron District of Manhattan.
Barbie Gatton, MD
Barbie Gatton is a clinical faculty member in the Department of Emergency Medicine at New York Methodist Hospital, where she also serves as the Director of Quality Assurance. As a physician involved in teaching, quality improvement, and political advocacy, Dr. Gatton has worked to advance the healthcare system on all fronts, including strong participation in professional, political, and educational organizations that work to change health care through advocacy for patients, physicians and policy reform.
Luella Toni Lewis, MD
As Chair of SEIU Healthcare, Dr. Lewis leads the union's efforts to improve the quality of patient care and ensure equal rights and fairness in the workplace for all healthcare workers. Dr. Lewis is a recipient of the 2010 “Phenomenal Woman” Award by the New York Branch of the NAACP in recognition of her outstanding commitment to civil rights and her dedicated leadership to the healthcare industry, and the 2010 Dr. Paul Cornely Award for her efforts to ensure comprehensive health care for everyone in America.
Gary A. Puckrein, PhD
Gary A. Puckrein, PhD, is President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Minority Quality Forum (formerly the National Minority Health Month Foundation), a not-for-profit organization that he founded in 1998. The Forum addresses the critical need for strengthening national and local efforts to use evidence-based, data-driven initiatives to guide programs to eliminate the disproportionate burden of premature death and preventable illness for racial and ethnic minorities and other special populations. The goal of the Forum is to strengthen the capacity of local communities to eliminate the disproportionate burden of premature death and preventable illness in minority populations through prevention, early detection, and control of disease complications.
Eric Scherzer, MPH
Eric Scherzer is Executive Director of the Committee of Interns and Residents (CIR) and an ex-officio board member of the CIR Education and Policy Initiative. He has over three decades experience in labor relations, occupational health education and workplace safety development, and holds an MPH in Community Health. He has held teaching appointments at Rutgers University and Empire State College, and continues to sit on several executive, editorial and advisory committees.
CIR Policy and Education Initiative Staff
Sandra Shea, Program Director
Sandy Shea serves as program director of the non-profit CIR Policy and Education Initiative and policy director of the Committee of Interns and Residents/SEIU Healthcare. With more than 30 years of experience, Ms. Shea has made resident work hours and patient and physician safety a consistent focus of her work. She recently co-authored a 2010 BioMed Central-Medicine article reporting on the results of a national opinion survey to determine the public’s perception of the hours that resident physicians work and their support for reform.