Kenneth Chen
Kenneth Chen (President)
Kenneth K. Chen, MD FRACP, has been the President of ISOM since October 2018 after spending the previous 5 years as the Meetings representative on its executive council. He collaborated with NASOM, SAISOM & ISSHP in planning the past 3 scientific meetings of ISOM held in New Orleans (2014), Cape Town (2017) & Amsterdam (2018).
He has been the director of the Division of Obstetric and Consultative Medicine and co-director of the Integrated Program for High-Risk Pregnancy at Women & Infants Hospital, Providence, Rhode Island, USA since January 2012. He has also been the Director of Endocrinology, Diabetes & Metabolism of Care New England Health since September 2019. He had completed dual fellowships in endocrinology at The Prince of Wales Hospital, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia; and in obstetric and consultative medicine at Women & Infants Hospital, Brown University, USA. He was introduced to the field of obstetric medicine by Dr Sandra Lowe whilst he was training in Sydney.
Dr. Chen is currently an associate professor of medicine and associate professor of obstetrics & gynecology at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. He is a recipient of multiple Dean’s Excellence in Teaching awards as well as the Beckwith Family Award for Outstanding Teaching in 2017.
He is a member of the International Network of Obstetric Survey Systems (INOSS). He is currently on the editorial board for the journal Obstetric Medicine. He is the current co-chair of the Health & Public Policy Committee of the American College of Physicians (Rhode Island chapter). He loves to travel & cannot wait to resume this once the pandemic subsides somewhat.
Sandra Lowe (Immediate Past President)
Sandra Lowe is a Consultant Obstetric Physician at the Royal Hospital for Women and Clinical Associate Professor at the University of NSW.
A/Prof Lowe speaks regularly at National and International conferences of Obstetric Medicine and she has a long-standing interest in teaching obstetric medicine. She is the lead author of three SOMANZ National Guidelines on the Management of Hypertension in Pregnancy (2014), Management of Nausea and Vomiting in Pregnancy and Hyperemesis Gravidarum (2019) and most recently the SOMANZ Position Statement on Pulmonary Embolism In Pregnancy And Post-Partum (2021). A/Prof Lowe is the Emeritus Chief Editor of the international journal “Obstetric Medicine” and the Immediate Past-President of the International Society of Obstetric Medicine. Currently she is the Section Editor for Medical Disorders for the Global Library of Women’s Medicine online textbook.
Sandra Lowe, MBBS, FRACP, MD, Honorary Fellow RANZCOG, AM
Paul Gibson
Paul Gibson (Secretary, NASOM Rep)
Gibson is an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Calgary.
He obtained his medical degree and Internal Medicine residency at the University of Manitoba, followed by Fellowship training in Obstetric & Consultative Medicine at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, USA.
Gibson founded the Obstetric Internal Medicine program in Calgary in 2001, and he provides inpatient and outpatient consultation for medically-complicated pregnancies in Calgary as well as an ongoing general internal medicine inpatient practice at Foothills Hospital. He is currently the Program Director for the Internal Medicine Residency Program at the University of Calgary.
His research interests focus on medically complicated pregnancies with an emphasis on cardiac disease, thrombosis, hypertension and medical education.
Winnie Sia (Treasurer)
Winnie Sia is a Professor in the Departments of Medicine and Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. She is an Obstetric Internist trained in Women and Infants Hospital, Providence, Rhode Island, USA. She held the role of ISOM Treasurer since 2014 and was ISOM Secretary in 2014-2020. She is currently the Chief of Medicine in the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Edmonton. Winnie’s research and quality improvement interests include preeclampsia and thrombosis in pregnancy, as well as pregnancy complications as longterm risks for women. She founded the Postpartum Preeclampsia Clinic in 2010 to counsel and manage women with preeclampsia on their longterm cardiovascular risks.
Winnie Sia
Helen Barrett
Helen Barrett (President, SOMANZ)
Dr Helen Barrett is the current President of the Society of Obstetric Medicine Australia and New Zealand. She is an Obstetric Physician and Endocrinologist and is Director of Endocrinology at the Mater Hospital, Brisbane, Australia. She is a Senior Lecturer within the Faculty of Medicine at The University of Queensland. Dr Barrett has a strong interest in improving the outcomes of complicated pregnancy, with a particular focus on maternal obesity and diabetes in pregnancy. Her PhD examined the role of maternal lipids and placental lipid processing in the outcomes of pregnancy for women with diabetes. Dr Barrett’s current research continues to explore maternal and placental metabolism in complicated pregnancy, with emphasis on the role of the microbiome.
Amanda Beech (SOMANZ Rep)
Amanda Beech is an Obstetric Medicine Physician and Endocrinologist at the Royal Hospital for Women and the Prince of Wales Hospital, Randwick, and holds a conjoint associate lecturer position at the University of New South Wales. She has a breadth of clinical experience in preconception counselling, managing medical disorders of pregnancy including pre-eclampsia, gestational and pre-existing diabetes, thyroid disease and hyperemesis, as well as a focus on women’s health across all ages, particularly reproductive endocrinology, menopause and osteoporosis.
Amanda has been actively involved in ISOM since 2019, after being elected to the Council representing SOMANZ and is involved with education and future ISOM international meetings. Amanda has a passion for medical education, which has seen her invited to speak at a number of SOMANZ conferences, RANZCOG Diplomates evenings, and registrar training days and she has developed the Obstetric Emergency Simulation Centre at the Royal Hospital for Women.
She has a particular interest in long term cardiovascular outcomes following pregnancies complicated by pre-eclampsia and gestational diabetes, and is currently a site investigator in the BP2 randomised controlled trial looking at postpartum lifestyle intervention to reduce the long term incidence of hypertension following hypertensive pregnancies.
Amanda Beech
Helen Tanner
Helen Tanner (SOMANZ Rep)
Helen Tanner is an obstetric physician in Brisbane, Australia. Helen undertook her physician training in both New Zealand and Australia and is currently working as a general and obstetric physician at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital. Her PhD investigates the safety of carbohdyrate restriction in pregnancy and of elevated maternal ketones. Helen was a member of the executive council of SOMANZ from 2013 – 2020 and currently represents SOMANZ on the ISOM council.
Lucy McKillop (MOMS President)
Dr Mackillop is a Consultant Obstetric Physician, Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, UK; Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer, Nuffield Department of Women’s and Reproductive Health, University of Oxford and President of the UK’s MacDonald Obstetric Medicine Society. She is also Chief Medical Officer at Sensyne Health plc, a clinical AI company.
Dr Mackillop trained in General, Renal and Obstetric Medicine in Oxford, London and Sydney before taking up her consultant post in 2008.
Dr Mackillop has published over 70 peer-reviewed articles, national and international guidelines, book chapters and e-learning resources on a wide variety of medical conditions in pregnancy; including the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists guideline Reducing the risk of VTE in pregnancy and the puerperium which is used in many countries worldwide. She co-wrote the Royal College of Physicians curriculum for a credential in Obstetric Medicine, launched in November 2020 and is an educational supervisor and external assessor for this programme.
Her research interests include the role of telehealth solutions in women with medical problems in pregnancy and construction of evidence-based algorithms to predict acutely unwell women in pregnancy and the immediate puerperium.
Dr Lucy Mackillop BM BCh MA (Oxon.) FRCP, FRCOG ad Eundem
Anita Bannerjee
Anita Bannerjee (MOMS Rep)
Anita Banerjee FHEA, FRCP is an Obstetric Physician, Internal Medicine and Diabetes and Endocrinology Consultant. She is an Honorary Reader in Obstetric Medicine, at King’s College London and Deputy Director of Medical Education at Guys and St Thomas’ Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Her main interests are high risk pregnancies, the management of the deteriorating pregnant woman and medical education. She has published articles, guidelines and book chapters on a wide variety of medical conditions in pregnancy.
She is the current Secretary of the MacDonald Obstetric Medicine Society. She is member of the London Maternity Clinical Leadership Group and one of the central physician assessors for the UK confidential maternal deaths enquiries. She is one of the leading authors of the RCP Acute Care Toolkit on managing acute medical problems in pregnancy. She is the course director for the Medical Emergencies in Obstetrics (MEmO) simulation course running since 2015 and sits on the steering committee for mMOET, as the lead advisor for medical problems in pregnancy. Anita has led on the acute kidney injury obstetric bundle for the London Acute Kidney Injury Network. She has been involved in the curriculum design for midwives and doctors in training for high risk maternal medicine.
Lay-Kok Tan (Singapore/Asia Rep)
Lay-Kok Tan is a senior consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist with a special interest in obstetric medicine, for which he did a fellowship with Prof Michael de Swiet at Queen Charlotte’s hospital in London. He set up joint multidisciplinary obstetric medical clinics with the cardiology , renal medicine, hematology, endocrinology and rheumatology departments at the Singapore General Hospital, where he also established the Centre for High Risk Pregnancy (CHiRP). In March 2021 he became Head of the Department of Maternal Fetal Medicine at KK Women’s and Children’s hospital , the largest maternity hospital in Singapore which delivers twelve thousand babies annually . He has several ongoing research projects in obstetric medicine, and is also actively involved in both undergraduate and postgraduate medical education. He was an associate programme director for the OBGYN residency programme for SingHealth cluster in Singapore from 2010-2019, as well as programme director overseeing PGY1 doctors at the Singapore General Hospital from 2019-2021. He is the course organiser for an annual obstetric medicine course since 2004 , as well as the Vice-Chair (Education) for the SingHealth OBGYN Academic Clinical Programme. He is presently the President of the College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.
Lay-Kok Tan
Lizemarie Wium
Lizemarie Wium (SOOMSA President)
Lizemarie Wium is a specialist physician with an interest in obstetric medicine. She practices at Kalafong academic hospital and the University of Pretoria, South Africa. She acquired an Mmed(Internal Medicine) and FCP(SA) from the University of Pretoria, and was then trained in obstetric medicine by professor Catherine Nelson-Piercy at the Guy’s and St Thomas Hospital Trust, London. Lizemarie is the founder and current chairperson of the Society of Obstetric Medicine South Africa (SOOMSA)
Michael Carson (NASOM President)
I’m a Board Certified Internist and Philadelphia, PA native who completed my Internal Medicine Residency, Chief Residency, and Obstetric Medicine fellowship at Brown University. I’m President of the North American Society of Obstetric Medicine through the end of 2022, and Core Associate Professor in the Departments of Medicine and OB/Gyn at the Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine in New Jersey.
My clinical practice has shifted primarily to general internal medicine, but I am also the Director of Research for a local internal medicine residency program where I mentor residents and students in research, scholarly projects, journal club, and the evidence based medicine curriculum. My research focus is to improve the rates of postpartum testing for dysglycemia for women with Gestational Diabetes, and I’m glad that the International Ob Medicine Listserv is going strong.
Michael Carson
Meena Khandelwal
Meena Khandelwal (NASOM Rep)
Meena Khandelwal MD, Professor of Obstetrics & Gynecology at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University, is passionate about Maternal Medicine and advancing care of women with complicated pregnancies. This is exemplified in many ways, first is being triple-boarded in Internal Medicine, Obstetrics & Gynecology, and Maternal Fetal Medicine. Secondly, her vision of a maternal center of excellence for women with multiple medical problems resulted in a Maternal Obstetric Medicine program with multidisciplinary coordinated care lead by MFM. Thirdly, education and research are critical to promoting the best care possible for these complex pregnancies. As Director of Research and Course Director at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University (CMSRU), she promotes diversity, equity and best practices in maternal medicine. She has over 30 publications, teaching awards and ‘Best Doc’ designations in NJ and Philadelphia area.
Bashir Saleh (Middle East Rep)
Affiliation: Corniche Hospital, Abu Dhabi
Looks after patients with medical problems in pregnancy.
Holds combined clinics in Cardiology, Haematology, Neurology and Respiratory medicine with Obstetrians and specialized physicians from Sheikh Khalifa Medical City and Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi.
Regular speaker in many national and International Conferences in the Gulf countries and the Middle East. Received several Awards.
March 2010, RCOG – U.K. recognized Obstetric Medicine Unit in Corniche hospital as the 1st and only unit outside U.K. to train obstetricians in Maternal / Obstetric Medicine. (ATSM).
April 2012 Dr Bashir was awarded the fellowship of the RCOG UK for his high level of dedication and achievements in clinical care and support to develop women’s health services.
Member of several National and International Organization. Past president of SUDA (Sudan Diabetes Association, Gulf Chapter). Middle East Representation of ISOM
Bashir Saleh
Atsuko Murashima
Atsuko Murashima (JSOM Rep)
Dr. Murashima graduated from the University of Tsukuba in 1982, and worked as a trainee physician at Toranomon Hospital. She joined the Department of Rheumatology in Juntendo University in 1985.
Since 2002, she has worked as the head of maternal physicians at the National Center for Child Health and Development, and now, as the vice director of Center of Maternal-Fetal, Neonatal and Reproductive Medicine and the director of the Japan Drug Information Institute in Pregnancy.
She is a committee member of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare and the Pharmaceutical and Medical Device System. She is the president of the Japan Society of Obstetric Medicine and a director of the Japan College of Rheumatology.
Stephen Lapinky
Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine, Sinai Health System
Professor of Medicine, University of Toronto
Vice-President, NASOM
Co-Editor-in-Chief, Obstetric Medicine journal
Stephen Lapinsky