Newswise — Bethesda, Md (May 11, 2015) – Army Col. (Dr.) Shad Deering will be the next chair of Obstetrics and Gynecology in the F. Edward Hébert School of Medicine at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU), according to announcement today by School of Medicine dean Arthur L. Kellermann, MD, MPH.
Deering, a board-certified perinatologist who currently serves as assistant dean for Simulation Education in the School of Medicine at USU and the deputy Medical Director for the University’s Val G Hemming Simulation Center, will succeed Air Force Col. (Dr.) Christopher Zahn, who retired earlier this year to become the Vice President for Practice Activities at the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. As chair, Deering will oversee the academic activities of a department that teaches medical students, conducts research and supports USU faculty working in military treatment facilties stretching from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Bethesda, Md., to Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu, Hawaii.
“Col. Deering is the ideal choice to lead our Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. He is a national leader in simulation education and patient safety. In addition to being an outstanding military officer, he has impeccable credentials in academic and clinical medicine,” said Kellermann.
He is a 1993 graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, and a 1997 alumnus of School of Medicine at USU. He completed an obstetrics and gynecology residency at Walter Reed Army Medical Center/National Naval Medical Center, and later completed a three-year maternal-fetal medicine fellowship at Georgetown University Hospital.
Deering’s first assignment after fellowship was at Madigan Army Medical Center, Tacoma, Wash., where he was the chief of Obstetrics. While there, he deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom as the medical director for the Deployed Combat Casualty Research Team which was responsible for oversight of more than 100 research protocols in the combat theater of operations. While at Madigan, he also became the medical director for the Andersen Simulation Center. Throughout his six years in that position, he started, and continues to chair, the Army Central Simulation Committee, which is responsible for oversight of medical simulation for graduate medical education in the Army, and trains more than 50,000 providers on an annual basis at the Army’s 10 training hospitals.
Deering developed the Mobile Obstetric Emergencies Simulator (MOES), a highly innovative training program that provides simulation training on an actual labor and delivery unit to improve safety. It has been implemented in every hospital in the U.S. Military Health System that offers obstetric services. MOES was awarded two patents and won a Department of Defense Patient Safety Award for Technology as well as the Federal Laboratory Consortium Award for Excellence in Technology Transfer. Deering has authored or co-authored more than 100 publications with an emphasis on patient safety.
In 2011, he returned to USU to serve in his current capacity. As such, he has increased training within his division by more than 100% and worked to integrate high-fidelity trauma simulation into the Military and Emergency Medicine department curriculum and the University’s capstone interdisciplinary field exercise, Operation Bushmaster.
Deering is the current chair of the ACOG Simulation Consortium, chair of the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medcine Simulation subcommittee, and the Chair of the Medical Modeling and Simulation Training Working Group, which was created at the direction of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, and charged with developing the enterprise solution for medical simulation within the Military Health System. He remains an active clinician. He has delivered babies in 10 different states and a combat zone.
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The Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU), founded by an act of Congress in 1972, is the academic heart of the Military Health System. USU students are primarily active duty uniformed officers in the Army, Navy, Air Force and Public Health Service who receive specialized education in tropical and infectious diseases, TBI and PTSD, disaster response and humanitarian assistance, global health, and acute trauma care. A large percentage of the university’s more than 5,200 physician and 790 advanced practice nursing alumni are supporting operations around the world, offering their leadership and expertise. USU also has graduate programs in biomedical sciences and public health committed to excellence in research, and in oral biology. The University's research program covers a wide range of clinical and basic science important to both the military and public health. For more information, visit www.usuhs.edu.
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