Meet our Residents

Isha Agarwal, MD, PhD:

Medical School: Harvard Medical School
Professional Interests: Operations, Global Health
Awards/Positions in Medical School & Residency: NIH F30
Fun facts/Interesting past life: I was a healthcare consultant at Boston Consulting Group before joining residency. I’m on my local neighborhood association and love hyper-local news.
Why did you choose BIDMC? 3+1 program and streamlined curriculum

Damian Apollo, MD, MBA:

Medical School: Yale
Professional Interests: Sports medicine, Wilderness medicine, Exercise physiology, Nutritional science
Fun facts/Interesting past life: Interests in power lifting, gymnastics, wrestling and coloring.
Why did you choose BIDMC? By far the coolest group of residents of any program. Faculty is fantastic, city is amazing, and the program is known for offering the best training in the country in a program that you can make three or four years.

Max Blodgett, MD:

Medical School: Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School
Professional Interests: Medical Education, Clinical pathways, Wilderness medicine, Disaster medicine
Awards/Positions in Medical School & Residency: SAEM Excellence in Emergency Medicine Award
Fun facts/Interesting past life: Competed in the National Vocabulary Championship on the Game Show Network. Spent a month hiking across a glacier. On a first name basis with all of the Ikea furniture in my apartment.
Why did you choose BIDMC? An outstanding academic EM department with exceptional clinical training. Incredibly accomplished faculty who are all vested in the mission of educating residents. EM is a strong presence at BI. Third-year residents really run the department, managing flow, overseeing care and educating junior residents. Unparalleled flexibility to take the 4th year to build a niche, join a fellowship, or start working after three years. A patient population of sick complex patients at the BI rounded out with a variety of community and affiliate hospitals. An awesome group of co-residents!

Gideon Cohen, MD:

Medical School: Albany Medical College
Professional Interests: Emergency ultrasound, ED administration, medical malpractice.
Awards/Positions in Medical School & Residency: Alpha Omega Alpha, SAEM Medical Student Excellence in Emergency Medicine Award, EMIG President.
Fun facts/Interesting past life: Born and raised in New York. Past life as an EMT. I love hiking and the outdoors.
Why did you choose BIDMC? The program here has an intelligently and deliberately designed curriculum that maximizes time spent in the ED. The various rotations also expose you to a very high-acuity and diverse patient population. The opportunity to rotate through several community hospitals with less availability of consultants fosters a high degree of independence and prepares you to practice in any environment. All of this occurs in the setting of an extremely supportive and close-knit group of residents, faculty, and staff.

Arjun Dhanik, MD:

Medical School: UT Southwestern
Professional Interests: Operations, Disaster Medicine, Global Health
Awards/Positions in Medical School/Residency: Cardiology Interest Group Co-president
Fun Facts/Interesting past life: I completed 2 years of post-graduate training in General Surgery at Mayo Clinic Arizona before switching to Emergency Medicine. I ran with the bulls in Pamplona. I have never successfully sent a fax in my life.
Why did you choose BIDMC?: There truly is a sense of community at BIDMC, not just amongst the residents but also between the residents and the faculty. The residents have an excellent quality of life without sacrificing clinical training. The resources at BIDMC and the 3+1 program structure give you unparalleled flexibility to tailor your training. The attendings are incredibly approachable and are genuinely interested in teaching. The leadership has put a great deal of thought into our curriculum; it is constantly being updated and improved with feedback from the residents.

William Fyfe, MD:

Medical School: University of Massachusetts
Professional Interests: Narrative Medicine, Health Policy, Community Practice Settings
Awards/Positions in Medical School & Residency: Alpha Omega Alpha, Board Member for the Worcester Evening Free Medical Service Program.
Fun facts/Interesting past life: I’m originally from Berkley, MA. Before medical school I was fortunate to serve as a deck watch officer aboard the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter MIDGETT, joining an outstanding crew who interdicted and seized over 10 metric tons of cocaine.
Why did you choose BIDMC? I rotated here in my 4th year and was immediately impressed with the collegiality and professionalism of all the ED staff and faculty. Other huge factors – living in Boston, unparalleled community practice exposure, and an amazing homegrown computer interface that actually (gasp) helps you take better care of your patients!

George Guo, MD:

Medical School: Yale School of Medicine
Professional Interests: Being awesome at emergency medicine
Fun facts/Interesting past life: I love to dance hip hop and salsa.
Why did you choose BIDMC? Awesome program, awesome people, awesome city.

Joshua Kolikof, MD:

Medical School: The University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMass)
Professional Interests: Healthcare Disparities, Medical Education, Ultrasound, Toxicology.
Awards/Positions in Medical School & Residency: Albert Schweitzer Fellow for Life, Gold Humanism Honor Society.
Fun facts/Interesting past life: I was born at the BI (prior to the merger)! My first job was as a Subway Sandwich Artist and I still make an excellent sub to this day. Outside of medicine, I have interests in running, cooking, food chemistry and fermentation science.
Why did you choose BIDMC? It was an easy decision; it was about the people. Prior to starting medical school, I had the pleasure of working at BIDMC. Then and now, I was inspired by the dedication, humanism, empathy and outstanding clinical abilities of each and every staff member. Everyone is engaged in sharing knowledge, providing excellent patient care, and working collaboratively. This is an institution that prides itself on being a premier teaching hospital, and that was apparent to me from day one. I'm ecstatic to be back, and to learn from some of the very best in Emergency Medicine!

Stephen Ngo, MD:

Medical School: Northwestern University
Professional Interests: Administration and Management, Disaster Medicine, Global Health
Awards/Positions in Medical School & Residency: VP for Hepatitis B Alliance, Board Member for the Chinatown Clinic
Fun facts/Interesting past life: With no prior acting experience, I was hired to be a standardized patient during undergrad. I played roles ranging from an orphaned teenager to a rude businessman for medical students, paramedics and doctors. I also like to travel.
Why did you choose BIDMC? A close-knit community of accomplished faculty, staff and residents, a 3 + 1 training format, abundant opportunities to pursue more specific interests, sushi for interview dinner and the experience of living in Boston.

Danielle Rawal, MD, MPH:

Medical School: University of North Carolina
Professional Interests: Public Health, Critical Care, Sepsis, Research, Medical Education
Awards/Positions in Medical School & Residency: Treasurer and research fellow at the Goldring Center for Culinary Medicine 
Fun facts/Interesting past life: I’m from rural Michigan, but I have lived in four different cities in my 20’s (Ann Arbor, Boston, New Orleans and Chapel Hill). I am a University of Michigan alumna, and I am obsessed with watching Michigan sports. When I was younger my career goal was to play basketball for the WNBA. I can tap dance.
Why did you choose BIDMC? I spent time doing research at BIDMC before medical school and completed a rotation here as a fourth year medical student. One of the things that stood out to me about BI was the culture in the emergency department. Everyone, including students, staff, residents and faculty are treated like important members of the team. I also think the variety of clinical sites we rotate at provide an unparalleled training experience and I like the 3+1 format of the program.

Kelsey Row, MD:

Medical School: Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University
Professional Interests: Public Heath, Global Health, Women's Health in the ED
Awards/Positions in Medical School & Residency: Alpha Omega Alpha, President of Women's Health Interest Group
Fun facts/Interesting past life: I was an EMT before med school, and I studied jellyfish and firefly bioluminescence in college (complete with research trips to the Vieques bioluminescence bay)
Why did you choose BIDMC? In a word, the people. On my interview day, I immediately felt so at home with everyone in the department. BIDMC really exemplifies team-based patient care and resident education. Residents, attendings, nurses, techs and everyone else on the healthcare team has an amazing relationship, both inside and out of the hospital. I also really liked the flexibility of the 3+1 layout, and the endless opportunities to pursue your own interests within the field of Emergency Medicine.

Daniel Shaw, MD:

Medical School: Yale School of Medicine
Professional Interests: Ultrasound, Public Policy, Wilderness Medicine, Medical Education
Awards/Positions in Medical School & Residency: Co-president Medical Education Interest Group, Finalist at Startup Yale Pitch Competition
Fun facts/Interesting past life: In my past life, I worked as a medicinal chemist. My love for the outdoors has led to some awesome adventures, including winter camping in Vermont, surfing in Costa Rica and hiking across the crater of Mount Kilauea in Hawaii.
Why did you choose BIDMC? BIDMC offers top-notch training at diverse clinical sites while providing amazing resources in an awesome city.

James Whitledge, M.D.:

Medical School: Tufts University School of Medicine
Professional Interests: Wilderness medicine, potentially lots of other things I haven't discovered yet.
Awards/Positions in Medical School & Residency: AOA, Civic Honors, Research Honors
Fun facts/Interesting past life: I taught English and coached ski racing in northern Japan for two years after college. Later on while being a ski bum in Maine I found a starving dog in the woods and adopted him; he's been very supportive of my decision to pursue emergency medicine.
Why did you choose BIDMC? Friendly and immensely talented faculty and staff, and a unique training structure (3+1, many clinical sites) suited to my undecided future career path.

Peter Yeo, MD:

Medical School: University of New Mexico
Professional Interests: Global health, wilderness and austere medicine, health policy
Fun facts/Interesting past life: I had a nearly sustainable life traveling the world as a climber/skier/salad server before med school.
Why did you choose BIDMC? A three year program that excels in academic and community emergency medicine with the goal of producing emergency physicians who can work anywhere was exactly what I was looking for. The global and public health resources here are incredible, and the option to continue to pursue those interests in a fourth year was impossible to pass up.