Resident Innovation Training Pathway
Health technologies such as therapeutics, medical devices, and digital tools have great potential to transform the delivery of healthcare and encourage personalized medicine. To encourage the development, validation, and implementation of such technologies through a real-world ‘biodesign’ innovation experience, we recently created a Health Technology Innovation Training Pathway for Montefiore Einstein residents. Through this initiative, residents are mentored by participants of the Montefiore Einstein Innovation Biodesign Training Program.
Training Pathway Participants
Adam Haines, MD, MPH
Adam Haines is an internal medicine resident at Montefiore Medical Center. He was born in Ohio and completed his undergraduate training in neuroscience at The Ohio State University before moving to the Bronx to attend medical school at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. His clinical interests are in allergy & immunology. He is interested in the use of health technology to empower patients and enhance their ability to prevent and manage their chronic conditions.
Afek Kodesh, MD
Afek Kodesh was born and raised in Bellevue, WA and studied biomedical engineering at the University of Southern California. He went on to work for a year at GE Healthcare, focusing on machine learning and how it can assist in biological research. Dr. Kodesh earned his M.D. at Tel Aviv University and is currently a PGY-2 in the Internal Medicine department. He is interested in cardiology-based innovation and would like to focus on how technology can improve outcomes for patients suffering from MI. Additionally, Dr. Kodesh would like to investigate how technology can assist patients in better understanding/managing their illnesses.
Chukwunwike Okafor, MD
Chukwunwike Okafor, MD (Chike) is a New Jersey Native who obtained his undergraduate degree at Rutgers University. He continued his education at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and completed a residency in Family medicine at Montefiore Medical Center in Bronx, New York. Chike is currently a fellow at Duke University Primary Care Sports Medicine Program. Chike is interested in exploring biomechanical dysfunction and how improving movement patterns can help to prevent and alleviate the common musculoskeletal condition. He is passionate about mentorship and hopes to continue involving himself in pipeline programs to promote a diverse field of sports medicine physicians in the future. You can often find Chike playing sports, basketball, or Jiu Jitsu. He is also passionate about spending quality time with family and keeping his creativity alive with documentary photography
Deepak Kalbi, MD
Deepak Kalbi was born and raised in Gujarat, India. He is currently serving as the Chief Resident Physician in Nuclear Medicine, department of radiology at Montefiore Medical Center, The University Hospital for Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Deepak is a passionate and enthusiastic physician with a strong focus on molecular imaging and targeted therapies. He possesses expertise in various modalities such as PET-CT, PET-MR, SPECT, nuclear cardiology, oncology, and theragnostic approaches. With a comprehensive understanding of the field, Deepak is dedicated to advancing the field of nuclear medicine and providing quality patient care.
Faisal Kirdar, MD
Faisal Kirdar is thrilled to join the Innovation Biodesign Pathway at Montefiore while starting his second year of training as an internal medicine resident. Before coming to the Bronx, he completed an MD, MPH in Epidemiology at Tulane University. He plans to pursue a career in cardiology and is passionate about education. In fact, prior to medical school, he taught 11th grade chemistry in the Mississippi Delta as part of Teach for America. He hopes to create a project that utilizes artificial intelligence to create patient focused education tools to address cardiovascular risk factors.
John X. Wei, MD
John X. Wei was born in China and raised in New York. He received his medical degree from the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell. He is currently an Internal Medicine resident at Montefiore Medical Center. John is committed to medical education, especially improving the research pipeline for residents, and has collaborated with leadership to establish a residency research group. His personal research experience lies in data science with the analysis of large cancer data sets and he has a strong interest in the potential of machine learning to advance medical prognostication.
Josette Kamel, MD
Josette Kamel grew up in Denver, Colorado. She completed her undergraduate education at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois where she studied biophysics and biochemistry. She also became first involved with research at Northwestern, where she worked in a basic science Alzheimer’s research laboratory studying the structural characterization of amyloid beta oligomers. She later completed medical school at University of Illinois in Chicago. Her interests include malignant and benign hematology. She is currently an Internal Medicine resident at Montefiore Einstein.
Olutimilehin Oyeniran, MD
Olutimilehin Oyeniran, a rising third year Family and Social Medicine Resident at Montefiore comes to us from St. George's University School of Medicine. During his second year at SGU, he was a part of a research project looking at Second Generation Nigerian Americans And Their Access To Mental Healthcare. The project helped him understand the relation of mental health and chronic illness and the cultural, social, and economic barriers to healthcare that this group and many underserved groups faced. He also was part of a research project looking at Sickle Cell Disease and Depression while as an undergrad at Rutgers University and the need for advocacy for mental health consults for this group. He was also the President of Black Men's Collective at Rutgers University to address the low attrition rates of black men at the university, the founder of the Parson's Elementary Big Brother Program, a program to mentor at-risk fifth graders in North Brunswick, NJ. He was a Teaching Fellow for the EOF Program at the university. He plans on pursuing sports medicine fellowship after residency. His interests include medical education, optimizing technology in clinical medicine, leveraging software to enhance the patient-provider relationship, product development, digital health and medical devices. Tim is an avid fan of the Brooklyn Nets, enjoys playing basketball, and enjoys weightlifting.
Santiago Beltran, MD
Santiago Beltran was born in Quito, Ecuador. He then moved to Lima, Peru, where he attended medical school at Universidad Peruana de Ciencias Aplicadas. Dr. Beltran is currently completing Internal Medicine residence at Montefiore Einstein Wakefield Campus. He has a great interest in exploring the intersection of technology and Oncology, with a focus on leveraging technological advancements for medical education and treatment personalization and enhancing the relationship between medical professionals and technology.
Simran Arjani, MD
Simran Arjani is a 2nd year Internal Medicine Resident at Montefiore Medical Center aspiring to a fellowship in Hematology/Oncology. She studied biomedical engineering at The College of New Jersey and attended medical school at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. While in medical school she interned at IQVIA on a team that used machine learning to better characterize and understand medical problems. She later became interested in oncology pursued a year of research in cancer epidemiology at the NIH in the Metabolic Epidemiology Branch of the National Cancer Institute. Currently her interests lay at the intersections of cancer epidemiology and lifestyle medicine as well as the intersection of technology and healthcare innovation.
