Effective Communication During Disasters (ePub)

Sarah K. Bezek, MD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine and Section of Emergency Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. She is a graduate of Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center and trained in Emergency Medicine at Yale University. She has been practicing emergency medicine as a board-certified physician working predominantly with underserved populations.

She is on faculty at the National School of Tropical Medicine in Houston, Texas, with special emphasis on education, acute care and trauma in low/middle income countries, and neglected diseases of poverty. She has given lectures both locally and internationally regarding emerging infectious diseases. She has also worked on research in the area of new malarial diagnostics.

She has been awarded for her work with mentorship and medical student education.

Jonathan Dyal's interest in disaster response began while studying emerging infectious diseases at Stanford University. His commitment to emergency disaster management was solidified by medical relief trips to Bolivia, Ghana, Tanzania, and Uganda.

Dr. Dyal began his career in international disaster response by pursuing his MD at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. While enrolled at Johns Hopkins, he worked with the distinguished faculty of the Center for Global Health to conduct research in Pune, India, on Cryptococcal Meningitis. Before beginning his clinical training, he earned his Master's in Public Health at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. His thesis focused on the origins of an outbreak of syphilis among high risk groups around Lake Victoria. After graduating from the School of Public Health, Dr. Dyal was awarded a Doris Duke Global Health Fellowship. As a Doris Duke Fellow, he spent a year studying emerging zoonotic diseases and viral hemorrhagic fevers in Uganda. During this time he also enrolled in the University of Minnesota's Global Health Course. In addition to studying disaster management in low resource settings, this experience prepared him to pursue a Certificate in Tropical Medicine, which was awarded by the American Society for Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in June 2015.

Dr. Dyal is currently an Emergency Medicine resident at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas. As a resident, Dr. Dyal has collaborated with many of the global health and disaster management faculty at Baylor. He has published several articles on emerging infectious diseases, including Chikungunya virus and leptospirosis. Upon graduation, his future plans include working with the Center for Disease Control's Epidemic Intelligence Service and a Disaster Medicine Fellowship in Emergency Medicine.