Congratulations to Dr. Aaron Rothstein and collaborators! Their article “Acute Cerebrovascular Events in Hospitalized COVID-19 Patients” was one of the top 10 most discussed articles published in the journal Stroke in 2020.

Our team continues to grow! We are pleased to welcome four new faculty members: Kelly Sloane, Kelley Humbert, Smita Holden, and Preethi Ramchand.

Kelly Sloane, MD

Kelley Humbert, MD

Smita Holden, MD

Preethi Ramchand, MD

2020 has been a rough year for all of us, with so much lost to the COVID-19 pandemic. One loss hit the Penn stroke team particularly hard – Beijing restaurant closed this fall. For those of you who spent time with us over the years, you know that our near-weekly team outings to have lunch at Beijing were a source of great pleasure. We will miss the conversation and camaraderie. The chicken with black bean sauce. The endless refills of black tea. The special “Beijing bucks” that Mike Mullen always took charge of. The exchange of fortunes at the end of the meal. No doubt we will move on to another spot eventually, but for now we bid a sad farewell to an old friend.

Hello to our new faculty members, Aaron Rothstein and Matthew Broderick. Aaron and Matt both just completed their ACGME fellowships with us.

Aaron will be joining our team here at HUP as an instructor, and Matt will be on a new venture split between HUP and Virtua Our Lady of Lourdes.

Aaron Rothstein, MD

Matthew Broderick, MD

Goodbye to our 2019 Fellow Rizwan Husain. Riz will be leaving us to pursue a new position at West Virginia University. He will be greatly missed by the team here at Penn.

Congratulations to our graduating class of 2019 Fellows: Matthew Broderick, Ossama Khazaal, Aaron Rothstein and Rizwan Husain. Cheers to a wonderful year and job well done!

Welcome to our new fellows!

Daniel Cristancho, MD

Daniel attended medical school at the University of Pennsylvania, and then completed both his Internal Medicine and Neurology residencies with us here at Penn. Daniel is joining us this year as an ACGME fellow.

Judy Dawod, MD

Judy attended medical school at the University of Damascus, and then completed Neurology residency programs at both the University of Damascus and the University of Arizona. She has also completed a Vascular Neurology fellowship at the University of Arizona, and joins us this year as our StrokeNET fellow.

Emily Grodinsky, MD

Emily attended medical school at Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, and then completed both her Internal Medicine and Neurology residencies at the Rush University Medical Center. Emily is joining us this year as an ACGME fellow.

Ossama Khazaal, MD

Ossama will be continuing in our program this year as an ACGME fellow, having already completed his StrokeNET fellowship with us.

Rebecca Blaguski, CRNP has joined our team as a Stroke Nurse Practitioner and Assistant Director of the Comprehensive Stroke Center at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.  

Rebecca comes to us from Toronto where she completed her Bachelor of Nursing Degree at McMaster University before working six years at the bedside specializing in neurosurgery and trauma at St. Michael’s Hospital, one of Toronto’s comprehensive stroke and level 1 trauma centers. After completing her Master of Nursing and NP Degree at Ryerson University she assumed a role as an Advanced Practice Provider. Rebecca is particularly passionate about quality improvement, improving patient experience during transitions along the continuum of care, and improving the health literacy of patients and the community.

Dr. Kristy Yuan discusses stroke in the young on the TODAY show here.