Alex Brescia, MD
Alex Brescia is a health services research fellow at the University of Michigan's Center for Healthcare Outcomes & Policy, and an Integrated Thoracic Surgery resident at the University of Michigan. He is originally from St. Louis, Missouri, and is currently working toward a Master of Science in Health and Healthcare Research degree through the Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation and the Rackham Graduate School. He is supported during two years of academic development time through the Section of Vascular Surgery under an Institutional National Research Service Award T32 training grant.
Dr. Brescia's research focuses on the effect of surgical innovation on access, outcomes, and resource utilization. Specifically, he aims to examine the effect of rapid dissemination of transcatheter technology (e.g. transcatheter aortic valve replacement) on ease of access and regionalization, referral patterns, episode expenditures, and clinical outcomes in cardiac surgical patients. In addition to this focus, he has research interests in adult cardiac and aortic surgery clinical outcomes, as well as acute postoperative opioid prescribing and new persistent opioid usage among general thoracic and adult cardiac surgical patients.
Jessica Billig, MD
Jessica Billig, MD, MSc is a health services research fellow at the University of Michigan’s Center for Healthcare Outcomes & Policy and the National Clinician Scholars Program. She is a current plastic surgery resident at the University of Michigan. She is originally from Los Angeles, California. Dr. Billig received her undergraduate degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology from the University of California, Berkeley, and she earned her medical degree from the New York University. Dr. Billig received her Master of Science degree in health and healthcare research through the National Clinician Scholars Program and the Rackham Graduate School at the University of Michigan.
Research Interests: Dr. Billig’s research interests include investigating avenues to improve the quality for outpatient surgical care at lower costs. More specifically, she is interested in defining quality in hand surgical care and finding drivers for healthcare variations to provide high-value and high-quality healthcare.
Karan Chhabra, MD
Karan Chhabra is a research fellow at the University of Michigan Center for Healthcare Outcomes & Policy and the National Clinician Scholars Program, as well as a General Surgery resident at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA. He is from Allendale, New Jersey and studied at Duke University and Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. Prior to medical school, he worked on strategic research for hospital executives at The Advisory Board Company in Washington DC. As an undergraduate at Duke, he studied English and researched physician-patient communication. He is working toward an Master's in Health and Healthcare Research through the National Clinical Scholars Program and the Rackham Graduate School.
Dr. Chhabra's research focuses on: 1) the effects of healthcare changes on surgical access and quality, 2) designing the optimal delivery network for surgical population health, and 3) methods to measure and encourage improvement in surgical quality and costs.
Ana De Roo, MD
Ana De Roo is a health services research fellow at the University of Michigan’s Center for Healthcare Outcomes & Policy, as well as a National Clinician Scholar. She is a General Surgery resident at the University of Michigan and received her medical degree from The Ohio State University College of Medicine. Through the National Clinician Scholars Program, she is working towards a Master’s Degree in Health and Healthcare Research.
Dr. De Roo’s research focuses on evaluating the outcomes of enhanced recovery protocols in older and vulnerable surgical patients, particularly those with comorbid conditions. She is also interested in patient decision making roles in cancer care.
Hoyune E. Cho, MD
Hoyune Cho (Esther) is a research fellow in the Section of Plastic Surgery at the University of Michigan and in the Michigan Comprehensive Hand Center for Innovation Research (M-CHOIR). She is currently on leave for academic development time from her General Surgery residency program at the University of Connecticut. She received her undergraduate degree in Biology and Linguistics from Columbia University, and her medical degree from Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. She is currently working toward a Master of Science degree in Health and Healthcare Research through the Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation and the Rackham Graduate School. She is supported through the Section of Plastic Surgery under an NIH T32 institutional training grant.
Dr. Cho’s research focuses on 1) patient preferences in postoperative pain management, 2) quality improvement in perioperative patient education, and 3) effectiveness of shared decision-making in surgical subspecialties.
JR Montgomery, MD
John Montgomery is a health services research fellow at the University of Michigan’s Center for Healthcare Outcomes & Policy, and a General Surgery resident at the University of Michigan Health System in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He received his medical degree from the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, South Carolina.
Dr. Montgomery’s research focuses on the impact of obesity on abdominal organ transplantation outcomes. In particular, he investigates the influence of pre-transplantation metabolic syndrome on post-transplantation outcomes and the effect of optimization via pre-habilitation and bariatric surgery on these outcomes. His research is supported by a T32 training gran from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
Ton Wang, MD
Ton Wang is a health services research fellow at the University of Michigan’s Center for Healthcare Outcomes & Policy and a General Surgery resident at the University of Michigan. She received her medical degree from the University of Florida College of Medicine and is currently working toward a Master of Science in Health and Healthcare Research degree through the Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation and the Rackham Graduate School.
Dr. Wang’s research focuses on the de-implementation of low-value care in breast cancer, particularly in older surgical patients. Her research is supported by a T32 training grant from the National Cancer Institute.
Alfred Yoon, MD
Alfred Yoon is a 4th year resident physician at the University of Michigan Section of Plastic Surgery. Alfred received his B.S. in Bioengineering at University of California, Berkeley and received his medical degree from University of California, Los Angeles. He is spending his academic development time as a research associate in the Michigan Comprehensive Hand Center for Innovation Research (M-CHOIR) and IHPI.
Alfred's primary research focus has been in Plastic Surgery, Hand Surgery, and Breast Reconstruction. Alfred's research interests include patient-reported outcomes research, cost-effectiveness economic analyses, statistical modelling of health outcomes, and machine learning.
Nick Berlin, MD
Nicholas Berlin is a research fellow at the University of Michigan Center for Healthcare Outcomes & Policy and the National Clinician Scholars Program. He is also an integrated resident in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at the University of Michigan. He is originally from Boulder, Colorado and completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Notre Dame. He went on to complete an MPH in biostatistics and epidemiology at Yale University and medical school at the University of Colorado. He is currently working towards a Master’s in Health and Healthcare Research through the National Clinician Scholars Program and the Rackham Graduate School.
Grace Chao, MD
Dr. Chao is a Veterans Affairs Research Fellow in Ann Arbor through the National Clinician Scholars Program and a General Surgery resident at Yale. She is originally from Queens, NY where she initially became interested in health disparities and structural violence. She studied at Harvard Medical School and wrote her thesis on the importance of disaggregation of Asian American Pacific Islander data. Prior to medical school, she has worked at The White House on the President's Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. As an undergraduate, she completed an ethnography of African Americans in St. Louis examining issues of distrust of healthcare which won the distinction as one of the top three undergraduate theses. Dr. Chao studied Anthropology through the Medicine and Society Program at Washington University in St. Louis where she was also a University Scholar in Medicine and an inaugural Civic Scholar of The Gephardt Institute for Public Service.
Career Interests: Dr. Chao is pursuing a career in academic surgery and is passionate about addressing issues of racial and socioeconomic status disparities, especially in obesity care. She believes that research is a powerful tool in advocating for patients and communities.
Research Interests: Her areas of interest are in: 1) identifying barriers to healthcare access for vulnerable populations 2) designing evidence-based policies and interventions to combat health inequity 3) improvement of data collection systems in race and social determinants of health. Dr. Chao employs both qualitative and quantitative methods in her research.