Bios  
MaryKay Bader
 MaryKay Bader, MSN, RN, CS, CCRN, CNRN, is a Neuroscience Clinical Nurse Specialist at Mission Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Mission Viejo, CA. Ms. Bader also serves on the Brain Trauma Foundations Medical Advisory Board. She is an expert in the critical care field, with nursing expertise in traumatic brain injury. She has authored a number of articles on the use of new technology to change nursing practice for patients with traumatic brain injury. Her research has appeared in a number of peer-reviewed publications, including the Journal of Neuroscience Nursing, Critical Care Nurse, Neurocritical Care, and AACN Clinical Issues.
Sylvain Palmer
 Dr. Sylvain Palmer, MD, FACS, is a neurosurgeon at Mission Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Mission Viejo, CA. He also practices at Saddleback Memorial Hospital and Irvine Medical Center. He received his MD from Johns Hopkins University and completed his surgical internship and neurosurgical residency there as well. He specializes in minimally invasive spine surgery and uses the latest innovative techniques to perform out-patient surgery, minimizing postoperative discomfort and disability. Dr. Palmer has been instrumental in the development of many of these techniques and regularly teaches advanced spine techniques to other spine professionals throughout the world. He has presented and published his experience in minimally invasive decompressive spine procedures, minimally invasive fusions, and minimally invasive instrumentation at various professional meetings and journals. He is a member of a number of professional organizations including AANS-CNS Section on Disorders of the Spine, American Association of Neurological Surgeons, Congress of Neurological Surgeons, and North American Spine Society.
Michael Pasquale
 Dr. Pasquale is board-certified in general surgery and critical care. He graduated from Georgetown University Medical School, where he also performed a surgical residency. He completed fellowships in research and critical care at the University of Minnesota. He serves as Lehigh Valley Hospital’s chief of trauma/surgical critical care and vice chairman of surgery.
Rocco Armonda

Dr. Armonda is the Director of Cerebrovascular Surgery and Interventional Neuroradiology, National Capital Consortium, Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and a Staff Neurosurgeon/ Interventional Neuroradiologist at the National Naval Medical Center.

He is a Lieutenant Colonel in the US Army. As Commander of the 207th Neurosurgery Team, he participated in numerous deployments to Iraq, conducting both military and humanitarian neurosurgical care.

Dr. Armonda has also served as an Assistant Professor of Surgery and Assistant Professor of Radiology at USUHS, and as an Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery at Thomas Jefferson University.

Dr. Armonda earned his undergraduate degree from the United States Military Academy, West Point, N.Y. and his medical degree from Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, MD. He completed his Neurosurgery Residency at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, DC, and a fellowship in Cerebrovascular Surgery and Interventional Neuroradiology at Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA.

He has published more than 25 peer-reviewed papers, written nine book chapters, and has presented at numerous national and international scientific meetings and lectures.
Donald Trunkey
 Donald D. Trunkey, MD, Professor and past Chair of the Department of Surgery at Oregon Health Sciences University. Dr. Trunkey is regarded as an internationally renowned trauma surgeon, and is one of the first surgeons to incorporate the concepts of preventable death methods and evidence-based practice in support of trauma systems. He shares his expertise and vast experience in research, education and trauma care with OHSU staff and patients by remaining active on the trauma call schedule. He remains an advocate for improved trauma care throughout Oregon and the United States. Dr. Trunkey was born and raised in farm country in Eastern Washington: the Palouse Country. Early work included farm work, mining, hod carrying, carpentry, sheet rocking and building contracting. He attended Washington State University for his undergraduate degree and the University of Washington Medical School. Uncertain about medicine or surgery as a career, he chose to do a rotating internship with Dr. Bert Dunphy at the University of Oregon. After one month on the surgical service, there was no question of what career to pursue. Following his internship, he spent two years in the United States Army as a general medical officer in Germany.
Upon completion of his military duties, he rejoined Dr. Dunphy at the University of California, San Francisco, where his general surgery training was completed. He spent one year in the Organ Preservation Laboratory with Dr. Folkert Belzer. Following his general surgery training, he spent an additional year with Dr. Tom Shires at Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas, where he was involved in a National Institutes of Health special fellowship in trauma. Following completion of his fellowship, he returned to the University of California, San Francisco, where he became very involved in the care of trauma patients. He was Chief of the Burn Center at San Francisco General Hospital and also had an extensive interest in elective vascular surgery and non-cardiac thoracic surgery. He established a laboratory to study mechanisms of shock at the cellular level with a special interest in myocardial performance following shock, lung injury, and cellular immune mechanisms following injury. In 1978, he became Chief of Surgery at San Francisco General Hospital and in April 1986, he assumed the Chair at Oregon Health Sciences University Department of Surgery. His intent is to build a general surgery residency based on all the primary components of general surgery. His own special interest remains trauma surgery.
Artemis March

Artemis March, PhD, MBA, Vassar graduate, and former Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute has created nearly 100 diagnostic, change, and learning projects since 1984 for universities, corporate clients, consulting firms, design consortia, foundations, and healthcare organizations. With the support of the Brain Trauma Foundation, she untangled structural and professional barriers to following its evidence-based guidelines for treating severe TBI, reconstructed processes through which three trauma centers overcame barriers, and drew out 14 strategies for changing physician behavior and getting all clinical players on the same page despite the fragmented structure of trauma/hospital care.

Following a decade with the Harvard Business School, MIT, and executive education consultancies, Dr. March, a sociologist by training, developed her own consulting/teaching practice to facilitate paradigm shifts in thinking, practice, and process. She has brought this same orientation to her work in health care where she views safety, clinical consistency and excellence, and patient-centered care as enabled by simplified workflow, collaborative working relationships, coordinated care plans, good communication, and being fully present to the patient. Her book, Dying into Grace, creates a groundbreaking, relational paradigm for realizing the mutually transformative potential in dying (www.dyingintograce.com).