2024 SOAP Fundamentals Speakers

Novette Berntson, CRNA 
Novette Berntson is a practicing CRNA at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. As a long-standing member of the OB core group, she provides anesthesia for obstetric patients with a wide variety of anesthetic needs (including providing anesthesia for maternal surgical procedures as well as anesthesia for fetal surgical procedures). Novette graduated in 2012 from the Mayo Clinic Nurse Anesthesia Program with a Masters in Nurse Anesthesia. She is passionate about teaching. She has received the 2020-21 Nurse Anesthetist Recognition Award (for support of the resident experience in the Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine) and the 2024 Doctor of Nurse Anesthesia Practice Program Rochester Methodist Campus CRNA Educator Award.
Beth Clayton, DNP
Beth Clayton, DNP, CRNA, FAANA, FAAN		 Beth Ann Clayton is the Program Director for the University of Cincinnati Nurse Anesthesia Program. She leads over 80 students in doctorate level nurse anesthesia programing, with 10 didactic faculty and approximately 80 CRNA clinical faculty members over 19 clinical sites. Beth has delivered more than 150 lectures to broad audiences of nurses and physicians across the U.S. and in Europe on obstetric anesthesia, neuraxial anesthesia techniques, pharmacology, and medicolegal considerations.  She has hosted clinical skills workshops and co-authored several peer reviewed publications.

Beth is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing and the American Association of Nurse Anesthesiology.  She is a primary author of the AANA Practice Guidelines Analgesia and Anesthesia for the Obstetric Patient and a member of the AANA Foundation Closed Malpractice Claims Review Team. Beth is appointed to Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Evidence Development and Coverage Advisory Committee (MEDCAC).  She served as the AANA representative to the ACOG Council on Patient Safety for Women’s Health Care and the National Quality Forum Maternal Morbidity and Mortality Committee.  

 
Carlos Delgado, MD Carlos Delgado, MD  Carlos Delgado, MD

Associate Professor
Associate Director, Obstetric Anesthesia
Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine - University of Washington
Clinical and research interests: labor pain relief, management of high-risk pregnancies, and clinical outcomes and modes of delivery of labor analgesia.

Antonio Gonzalez-Fiol, MD 		 Dr. Antonio Gonzalez-Fiol is an Associate Professor of Anesthesiology and the Director of the Obstetrics Anesthesia Fellowship at Yale New Haven Hospital. His research interests include point-of-care viscoelastic testing and POCUS, mainly ultrasound-guided neuraxial procedures. 

Jennifer Hoayek, MD 

Dr. Hoayek is currently an Assistant professor of Anesthesiology in Houston. She has completed dual fellowship training in Obstetric and Pediatric Anesthesia, with special emphasis on Fetal Anesthesia. In this role, she has had the privilege to care for all pregnant women and their babies, and also perform complex and unique Fetal procedures.Dr. Hoayek enjoys balancing between working in Obstetric and Fetal anesthesiology and research. This gives her a unique perspective into the maternal-fetal world and allows her to innovate when it comes to research and clinical care for all pregnant patients and their babies including those undergoing in-utero procedures. She is the recipient of the Research Time Award 2 years in a row and an active member of multiple anesthesia societies. She has been elected to the 2024-25 Board of Directors at SOAP as Director with less than 5 years in Practice. Additionally, she is a member of two DEI subcommittees, and she also serves on the SOAP ABA Certification Task Force.

Paige Keasler, MD  		 Paige Keasler is an Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology in Seattle. Originally, from the midwest, she completed anesthesiology residency in 2020, as one of the chief residents, at The University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. Following residency, she pursued an obstetric anesthesiology fellowship at Washington University in St. Louis. Upon completion, she moved to the pacific northwest where she presently is the obstetric anesthesiology fellowship director at The University of Washington and a lead part of the fetal surgery team. 

John Kowalczyk, MD 		 John J. Kowalczyk, MD completed medical school at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry and residency at the University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland, OH. He completed his Obstetric Anesthesiology fellowship at Stanford University in CA before beginning his career as an attending at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He has since moved to his current appointment at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. He also serves as Affiliate Staff for Boston’s Children’s Hospital and Consulting Staff for the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.


At BI, he was the section head of anesthesia for gynecologic surgery, and he is currently the director of fellowship research for the obstetric anesthesia division at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He’s served on numerous academic committees and grant review boards. He’s been nominated for many awards, including the Gertie Marx Presentation Award at the Society for Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology five different times. He’s been awarded various research grants, including a IARS mentored research grant this year. He’s given many regional, national, and international presentations. His current research primarily focuses on postoperative pain, postpartum hemorrhage, and congenital and acquired coagulopathies.


Ruth Landau, MD 

Dr. Ruthi Landau is the Virginia Apgar Professor of Anesthesiology and serves as the Division Chief of Obstetric Anesthesia at Columbia University in New York.

She is a Past-President of SOAP and serves on the Editorial Board of Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine (RAPM), Anaesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine (ACCPM), and the International Journal of Obstetric Anesthesia (IJOA).

She has authored over 150 articles and is invited to lecture on genomics and anesthesia, optimized labor analgesia, enhanced recovery after cesarean delivery, the opioid crisis, managing obstetric patients during COVID-19, and ethnic/racial disparities in maternal health care.


Emery McCrory, MD

 Dr. Emery McCrory attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for both undergraduate education and medical school. She then joined Northwestern for her anesthesiology residency and was one of the chief residents, graduating in 2019. Following residency, Dr. McCrory pursued an obstetric anesthesiology fellowship at Northwestern and upon completion, joined the faculty. Dr. McCrory is presently an Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology and the Medical Director of Obstetric Anesthesiology at Northwestern Medicine. 

Marie-Louise Meng, MD 		  Marie-Louise Meng is a cardiothoracic and obstetric anesthesiologist at Duke. Marie-Louise completed fellowships in both obstetric anesthesia and adult cardiothoracic anesthesia at Columbia University in New York. Her research at Duke focuses on both cardiac disease in pregnant women and preeclampsia.

Greg Palleschi, MD 

Dr. Palleschi is the Director of Obstetric Anesthesia for Northwell Health’s Central Region. He is passionate about maternal healthcare and firmly believes in the importance of the healthcare team in improving maternal outcomes. His efforts in mobilizing and energizing the team have been recognized. Both North Shore University Hospital and Long Island Jewish Medical Center are recognized as Society for Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology (SOAP) Centers of Excellence. Dr. Palleschi currently serves on the SOAP Board of Directors—and he has served SOAP in varying capacities throughout the years. Dr. Palleschi is the Associate Program Director for the Northwell Health Anesthesiology Residency Program and Chairman of the Clinical Competency Committee.

Sharon Reale, MD  		 Sharon Reale is a faculty member at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Originally from Texas, she graduated from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and completed anesthesiology residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital, followed by obstetric anesthesia fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Sharon has an interest in trainee education and serves as fellowship program director and director of resident education for the obstetric anesthesia division. Sharon’s research focuses on leveraging large databases to study maternal morbidity and mortality, including rare comorbidities and outcomes. 

Cynthia Wong, MD

Dr. Wong is a Professor of Anesthesia, Chair and DEO of the Department of Anesthesia at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine in Iowa City, Iowa, USA. Dr. Wong is an obstetric anesthesiologist whose research interests revolve around labor analgesia and its effects on the progress of labor and fetal status, epidural labor analgesia, as well as anesthesia for cesarean delivery and postoperative analgesia. She and her group have published several seminal studies that have changed the practice of obstetric anesthesia. Dr. Wong is on the editorial boards of the British Journal of Anaesthesia and is an editor of the International Journal of Obstetric Anesthesia. She has edited several major textbooks, including Chestnut’s Obstetric Anesthesia, Principles and Practice, and has authored multiple book chapters in major anesthesiology and obstetric textbooks. Dr. Wong is also an active educator, lecturing worldwide. She is currently the Chair of the ABA MOCA Minute Committee. Other interests include malignant hyperthermia; she has served as an MH Hotline consultant for many years. She is currently the President-Elect of the Society for Academic Associations of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine (SAAAPM).