Continue to check back. We post our keynoters as they are confirmed.

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THURSDAY

 

11:00am - 11:30am

Mayor Bill White

City of Houston

 

Mayor Bill White's leadership has brought Houston together, as shown by his overwhelming re-election to a third term. He uses business practices every day at City Hall to improve service and get things done. He has aggressively attacked our community's most difficult challenges, such as investment in neighborhood drainage, reform of municipal pensions, holding the line on property taxes with rate cuts and increased senior exemptions, attacking crime hot spots and even faster removal of stalled vehicles to reduce wrecks and traffic congestion.

 

Americans witnessed Mayor White's hands-on management style when he helped lead Houston's competent, compassionate response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

 

Now in his third term, Mayor White is accelerating work to revitalize our City's most neglected neighborhoods, with foreclosure and hundreds of new housing starts on thousands of abandoned properties. He also initiated a program to weatherize thousands of homes in older neighborhoods, saving homeowners an average of 20 percent on their electricity bills.

 

In addition, Mayor White has aggressive programs to enforce pollution laws, reduce the flooding impact of new developments, raise high school graduation rates, and encourage more flexible working hours. Before serving as mayor, White built one of the region's most successful businesses. Previously he served as Deputy Secretary of Energy of the United States, where he helped diversify national energy supplies and saved taxpayers billions of dollars with management reforms. Earlier in his career, he helped build and manage one of the nation's most successful law firms.

 

For decades Mayor White and his wife Andrea have helped lead numerous charitable and civic organizations. The Whites are parents of three students and attend St. Luke's United Methodist Church.

 

11:00am - 12:30pm

David E. Persse, MD
Physician Director, Emergency Medical Services, Public Health Authority, Dept of Health and Human Services, Houston, TX

 

Dr. David Persse's career in medicine started with ten years experience as a field paramedic and paramedic instructor in upstate New York and New Jersey. After receiving his undergraduate training at Columbia University in New York, he attended Georgetown University School of Medicine. Graduating with honors in emergency medicine from Georgetown, Persse then completed residency training in emergency medicine at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance, Calif., one of southern California's busiest trauma centers and paramedic base stations. During residency, he was already involved in several key resuscitation and pre-hospital care research projects, including laboratory and clinical investigations of pharmacological interventions used in advanced cardiac life support.

 

After residency, Persse completed a resuscitation research fellowship at the Ohio State University, where he pursued several laboratory projects relating to defibrillation, invasive monitoring, ventricular fibrillation waveform analysis and neuroprotection, both during and following resuscitation. Persse was then awarded a grant from the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine and completed fellowship training in emergency medical services (EMS) and resuscitation at the Baylor College of Medicine and the City of Houston Emergency Medical Services program. During this fellowship, he was instrumental in establishing and managing one of the world's largest cardiac arrest databases. He also became involved in studies regarding pediatric injury prevention, the use of warning lights and sirens, criteria for waiving resuscitation in the field and neurologic outcome after resuscitation from cardiac arrest. He continues to be actively involved in paramedic education, both locally and nationally. Persse has served as an examination writer and reviewer for the National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians.

 

Following his EMS fellowship, Persse became the assistant medical director for the Emergency Medical Services system of Houston, overseeing field operations and clinical research trials. He subsequently moved to California to become the medical director of the Los Angeles County Paramedic Training Institute, and the assistant medical director of the Los Angeles County EMS Agency. In 1996, Persse returned to Houston to assume the role of the director of Emergency Medical Services for the City of Houston. In May 2004, he was appointed by City Council as Houston's Public Health Authority. In his role as Public Health Authority, Persse is responsible for the medical aspects of clinical care quality management, disease control and public health preparedness. He is also a member of the Board of Directors for the South East Texas Trauma Regional Advisory Council and the National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians.

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FRIDAY

 

8:00am - 9:30am

Catherine DeAngelis, MD, MPH

Editor-in-Chief of JAMA

 

Dr. Catherine D. DeAngelis is Editor-in-Chief of JAMA, The Journal of the American Medical Association, Editor-in-Chief of Scientific Publications and Multimedia Applications, and Professor of Pediatrics, Johns Hopkins University of School of Medicine. She received her MD from the University of Pittsburgh's School of Medicine, and her MPH from the Harvard Graduate School of Public Health (Health Services Administration), and her pediatric specialty training at the Johns Hopkins Hospital.

 

Dr DeAngelis oversees JAMA as well as nine Archives publications and JAMA related website content. Before her appointment with JAMA, she was vice dean for Academic Affairs and Faculty, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and from 1994-2000, she was editor of Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. She also has been a member of numerous journal editorial boards.

 

She has authored or edited 11 books on Pediatrics and Medical Education and has published over 200 original articles, chapters, editorials, and abstracts. Most of her recent publications have focused on conflicts of interest in medicine, on women in medicine, and on medical education. Dr DeAngelis is a past council member of the National Academy of Science, Institute of Medicine, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and has served as an officer of numerous national academic societies including past chairman of the American Board of Pediatrics and Chair of the Pediatric Accreditation Council for Residency Review Committee of the American Council on Graduate Medical Education. She is a member of the Advisory Committee to the Director, NIH.

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SATURDAY

 

9:00am-10:30am

The Honorable James B. Peake, MD

Secretary of Veterans Affairs

 

Dr. James Peake was nominated by President George W. Bush to be secretary of veterans affairs Oct. 2007, was unanimously confirmed by the Senate on Dec. 14 and sworn into office on Dec. 20.

 

Peake is the principal advocate for veterans in the U.S. government and directs the nation's second-largest Cabinet department, which is responsible for a nationwide system of health care services, benefits programs and national cemeteries for America's veterans and dependents. The US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) employs more than 250,000 people at hundreds of medical centers, nursing homes, benefits offices and national cemeteries throughout the country. VA's budget for fiscal year 2007 is $77.3 billion.

 

A St. Louis, Mo., native, Peake received his Bachelor of Science degree from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1966 and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Infantry. Following service in Vietnam with the 101st Airborne Division, he was awarded the Silver Star, a Bronze Star with the Valor device and the Purple Heart with an oak leaf cluster. Peake entered medical school at Cornell University in New York and received his medical degree in 1972.

 

Peake began his Army medical career as a general surgery resident at Brooke Army Medical Center in Fort Sam Houston, Texas. He retired from the Army in 2004, following service as a cardiac surgeon and commander in several medical posts, culminating in his appointment as U.S. Army surgeon general from 2000 to 2004. As Army surgeon general, Peake commanded 50,000 medical personnel and 187 Army medical facilities worldwide. Prior to that, he served as commanding general of the U.S. Army medical department center and school, the largest medical training facility in the world, with more than 30,000 students annually.

 

After retiring as a lieutenant general, Peake served as executive vice president and chief operating officer of Project Hope, a nonprofit international health foundation operating in more than 30 countries. Just prior to his nomination as secretary of veterans affairs, Peake served as a member of the Board of Directors for QTC, one of the largest private providers of government-outsourced occupational health and disability examination services in the nation.

 

Peake is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons, Society of Thoracic Surgeons and the American College of Cardiology. He has been honored with the Order of Military Merit, the "A" Professional Designator, and the Surgeon General's Medallion.

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SUNDAY

 

11:00am - 12:30am

M. Joycelyn Elders, MD

Former U.S. Surgeon General

 

A native of Schaal, Ark., Dr. Joycelyn Elders is the oldest of eight children. Now a Professor Emeritus of pediatric endocrinology at the University of Arkansas School of Medical Science, she never saw a physician prior to her first year in college. At the age of 15, she received a scholarship from the United Methodist Church to attend Philander Smith College in Little Rock, Ark. Upon graduation at age 18, she entered the U.S. Army as a first lieutenant and received training as a physical therapist.

 

Elders attended the University of Arkansas Medical School (UAMS) on the G.I. Bill. After graduation in 1960, she was an intern at the University of Minnesota Hospital in Minneapolis and did a pediatric residency and an endocrinology fellowship at the University of Arkansas Medical Center in Little Rock. She ascended the academic ladder to full professorship after her fellowship and board certification in 1976. She also holds a Master of Science degree in biochemistry.

 

Elders joined the faculty at UAMS as a professor of pediatrics and received board certification as a pediatric endocrinologist in 1978. Based on her studies of growth in children and the treatment of hormone-related illnesses, she has written many articles for medical research publications. She was appointed director of the Arkansas Department of Health in October 1987. While serving as director, she was elected president of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officers.

 

Elders was nominated as surgeon general of the U.S. Public Health Service by President Clinton on July 1, 1993, confirmed by the Senate Sept. 7, and sworn in on Sept. 8. Elders served in this post until Jan. 1995 and subsequently returned to the University of Arkansas Children's Hospital until her retirement on June 30, 1998.

 

Elders has been active in civic affairs as a member of the Little Rock Chamber of Commerce, Northside YMCA and Youth Homes. She was listed in 100 Outstanding Women in Arkansas, Personalities of the South, and Distinguished Women in America. She has won awards such as the Arkansas Democrats Woman of the Year, the National Governor's Association Distinguished Service Award, the American Medical Association's Dr. Nathan Davis Award, the De Lee Humanitarian Award, and the National Coalition of 100 Black Women's Candace Award for Health Science. Elders has also received multiple honorary doctorate of medical sciences degrees and honorary doctorate of letters degrees.

 

Elders says her greatest achievement is that she married Oliver Elders and has two sons, Eric and Kevin.