91ÖÆƬ³§

David Estroff is a 1976 graduate of Hahnemann Medical College. He attributes many of his successes to the ironies, coincidences and role models that shaped his path.

While attending Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, Estroff worked as a surgery lab technician in the Cardiovascular Institute at Hahnemann Hospital while also serving as a member of the campus fire department where he became interested in first aid and became a registered EMT-ambulance and Red Cross first aid instructor. This experience led him to his interest in medicine, pursuing contacts in the U.S. Public Heath Service in Alaska after a summer visit with friends.

Between creating CPR training sessions for classmates and serving a community ambulance service in Philadelphia, Estroff was inspired by Jerry Kaplan and pediatric faculty to pursue a pediatric rotation in his R2. After signing up with the U.S. Public Heath Service scholarship, Estroff received an assignment at the Alaskan Bush Indian Health Service Hospital where he had rotated the first summer in Alaska. His assignment covered an area of 75,000 square miles of tundra and river delta with 15,000 mostly Yupik Alaska Native residents in 50 small villages. This involved flying out in small planes or going by boat to work with the village health aides and to respond to emergencies, doing deliveries and minor surgery as well as treating the rampant infectious diseases of the area. Estroff even met and married his wife, who was the IHS nurse he had met that first summer — five years prior!

After two years in Bethel, Alaska, two years in Portland, Oregon, and one year in Anchorage, Alaska, Estroff and his wife settled down in Sitka, Alaska, in 1982 where their family was complete with a daughter and son. His hobbies were and continue to be fishing, birdwatching and photography. While in Sitka, he was interviewed for an article, The Rural Physician, in the summer 1986 issue of the Hahnemann University Alumni Magazine.

After 10 years of serving the U.S. Public Health Service commissioned corps, living in Gig Harbor, Washington, Estroff transferred to the U.S. Army Reserve, where he served the military population based at Fort Lewis and worked alongside pediatric residents at the local Army Medical Center. In 1990, he led the inpatient service and pediatric curriculum for the affiliated Tacoma Family Medicine Residency program. It was also during this time that Estroff was called to active duty to service in the Gulf War of 1991 and Bosnian Civil War Intervention of 1996. His active duty would extend in 2000 as he served full time at Madigan Army Medical Center in Tacoma, Washington, as a colonel, to support general pediatrics and be outpatient clinic chief and an attending for the residency. Estroff additionally supported pediatric and primary soldier care on temporary assignments at Alaskan, Korean and California bases. Even upon retirement in 2009, Estroff was dedicated to his service and was assigned as a civilian pediatric provider to U.S. Army clinics in Germany for five years, not returning to his home and family in Gig Harbor, Washington, until 2014.

In 2014, Estroff served the community of Washington as he joined the faculty of a family medicine residency in Tacoma, based at Community Healthcare, a federally qualified health center which provides care for a large urban low income and underserved population. Upon the arrival of his first grandchild in 2019, Estroff mostly retired from practice but does continue to precept residents in clinic.

Estroff attributes being prepared well for his career in medicine to his medical education at Hahnemann. The innovative, integrated curriculum that was instituted was groundbreaking, emphasizing more patient contact and early clinical involvement and clinical/basic science correlation.

Alexandra Flis is a 2011 graduate of 91ÖÆƬ³§. She completed her residency in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the University of Utah, where she served as chief resident.

Flis joined the faculty at the University of Utah in 2015 and became director of the PM&R Consultation Service. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she was one of the founding members of the University of Utah’s COVID clinic and directed the PM&R COVID rehabilitation efforts.

In 2021, she became the first rehabilitation hospital medical director for St. John’s Health in Jackson, Wyoming, leading the development of their new rehabilitation hospital. Throughout her career, Flis has focused on expanding the reach of rehabilitation medicine across the Mountain West.

She currently serves as medical director of the Craig H. Neilsen Rehabilitation Hospital, vice chair of clinical operations for the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the University of Utah, and president of the University of Utah Hospitals & Clinics Medical Board.

Clinically, Flis specialized in neurorehabilitation. She is one of three board-certified brain injury specialists in the state of Utah. She is passionate about improving early rehabilitation and rural care. She is part of a PCORI-funded project addressing rural post-rehabilitation needs after trauma. She is dedicated to always improving care and elevating the patient voice and she founded the Craig H. Neilsen Rehabilitation Hospital Patient and Family Advisory Council to help drive patient and family initiatives into improving hospital operations.

Mariell Jessup is chief science and medical officer of the American Heart Association and an emeritus professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. She was the chief scientific officer of the Leducq Foundation from January 2017 through August of 2018 before moving to the American Heart Association role.

She practiced heart failure and transplant cardiology for 30 years at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, where she served in a variety of administrative roles including medical chief of the Heart and Vascular program and clinical chief of cardiology.

Jessup has been a long-time volunteer of the American Heart Association; she was a member of the Board of Directors of the National American Heart Association and president from 2013-2014.

Kimberly Cantees earned her MD from MCP in 1985, completed her anesthesiology residency at the University of Pittsburgh and went on in 2000 to study and obtain her MBA from the University of Pittsburgh. Following the completion of her residency in 1989, Cantees served in the U.S. Army, stationed at Fort Hood, Killeen, Texas. Her early academic and clinical career began at Darnall Army Community Hospital, where she served as chief anesthesiologist and as a clinical assistant professor at Texas A&M University. She received both the Army Achievement Medal and the Meritorious Service Medal.

Cantees returned to Pittsburgh to UPMC Presbyterian Hospital, the quaternary care facility for the UPMC Health Care System in 1993, working at several regional hospitals within and outside of UPMC. She returned to UPMC Presbyterian Hospital in 2018, serving as clinical director until February 2025, when she was appointed chief anesthesiologist at UPMC Presbyterian Hospital.

Cantees also serves as vice chair for community engagement, Department of Anesthesiology, University of Pittsburgh. In this executive leadership role, she guides initiatives that strengthen community involvement among faculty and trainees through volunteerism, fundraising, service projects supporting neighbors in need, and educational outreach designed to spark interest in anesthesiology and health care, particularly among elementary and high school students.

She is also a respected educator and scholar. She received her department’s Resident Teaching Award in 2020 and serves as a reviewer for Anesthesia & Analgesia. Her academic portfolio includes many peer‑reviewed publications, national conference presentations and invited lectures at institutions such as Vanderbilt University, Temple University and most recently Brown University. She is a frequent presenter at ASA ADVANCE and the Association of Anesthesia Clinical Directors Perioperative Leadership Summit, where she shares expertise on perioperative operations, staffing and leadership. She is a regular panelist at the Becker’s Healthcare Annual Meeting and the Perioperative Summitt.

Cantees is active in medical staff endeavors and in the Anesthesiology Residency program at the University of Pittsburgh. She is a member of departmental and medical staff committees, including the Residency Education and Residency Competency Committees and the UPMC Presbyterian Medical Staff Executive Committee and Credentials Committee, as well as the Surgical Services Oversight Committee.

In 2022, Cantees received UPMC’s Award for Commitment and Excellence in Service (ACES), an honor given to exceptional employees throughout the health system. Fewer than 1% of UPMC staff receive this prestigious award each year.

Robert Goldszer was born in Pittsburgh, earned a Bachelor of Arts in history from the University of Wisconsin, his medical degree and internal medicine residency training from Drexel/Hahnemann University in Philadelphia and his nephrology training at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston. He received his Master of Business Administration degree from Boston University's Executive MBA program and was elected to membership in Beta Gamma Sigma National Honor Society for Business Students.

From 1979 to 2008, Goldszer was a full-time faculty member at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston where he was a clinician, teacher, researcher and administrator, responsible for many quality improvement programs and improvements to the electronic health record. He was the director of primary care and associate chief medical officer until 2008 when he moved to Miami.

Goldszer was senior vice president and chief medical officer at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach from May 2008 until January 2024. His focus was on quality of patient care and education. Goldszer was instrumental in establishing many quality improvement, patient safety and education programs. He was also responsible for the physician teaching programs at Mount Sinai. He maintained a clinical practice of nephrology, internal medicine and in-patient teaching.

He is the author of 55 scientific articles, 16 book chapters and one book, Tales of the Pandemic, published in 2023.

Goldszer continues to teach and mentor. His current focus is his family: his wife, two daughters, their spouses, two grandchildren and his dog. He has been an avid sailor since his time in Boston, and he is always reading a good book and gardening.

Michael A. Levine is chief emeritus of endocrinology and diabetes and director of the Center for Bone Health at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. He holds the Lester Baker Endowed Chair and is professor emeritus of pediatrics and medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine.

Levine completed his clinical training at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and undertook dual fellowship training in endocrinology and genetics at the National Institutes of Health. He received a master's in law degree from the University of Pennsylvania Carey School of Law.

His research interests focus on the genetic basis of endocrine signaling defects. His primary clinical interests are endocrine diseases that affect bone and mineral metabolism, particularly osteoporosis, primary hyperparathyroidism and hypoparathyroidism. Levine has an active research program that complements and extends his clinical studies. He has identified and characterized the molecular basis of various inherited disorders of mineral metabolism, including familial hypoparathyroidism, pseudohypoparathyroidism, the McCune Albright syndrome, type 2 generalized arterial calcification of infancy and novel forms of vitamin D dependent rickets.

Levine is a member of numerous professional societies, including the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research, American Society for Clinical Investigation, Association of American Physicians, the American Pediatric Society and the Johns Hopkins Society of Scholars. He has received awards that include the Distinguished Endocrinology Award from the American College of Endocrinology, the Frederic C. Bartter Award from the American Society of Bone and Mineral Research, the International Award from the European Society for Pediatric Endocrinology and the Judson Van Wyk Prize and the inaugural Senior Investigator Award from the Pediatric Endocrine Society.