PEM ResCue is a subcommittee through the American Academy of Pediatric’s Section of Emergency Medicine.
MISSION
Our mission is to advance the clinical care of critically ill children requiring resuscitation from medical emergencies seen in all emergency departments by supporting and disseminating clinical research, promoting and providing equitable care, educational scholarship, QI, and quality assurance activities through local and national collaboration.
Executive committee
Chair: Ashish Shah, MD, MEd
Dr. Ashish Shah is a Pediatric Emergency Medicine physician and medical educator with a focus on resuscitation, simulation, and team leadership. He currently serves as Chair of the PEM ResCue Subcommittee and is passionate about fostering a collaborative space where physicians can share cases, learn from one another, and improve the care of critically ill children. His academic interests include team communication, shared mental models, and the use of simulation and video review to better understand what happens during real resuscitations. Through PEM ResCue, he hopes to help build a community that supports practical, high-yield education and scholarship in pediatric resuscitation. He can be contacted at ashshah@mcw.edu.
Benjamin Kerrey, MD, MS
Dr. Ben Kerrey has been a faculty physician in the Division of Emergency Medicine at Cincinnati Children’s since 2008. He currently serves as Medical Director of the Emergency Department, former Medical Director of the Shock Trauma Suite, and past Chair of the Medical Resuscitation Committee (MRC) at Cincinnati Children’s. He is also the Research Director for the Center for Simulation and Research. Dr. Kerrey has co-led the development of numerous clinical programs at Cincinnati Children’s, including the Critical Airway Team. His interests include simulation-based education, emergency pediatric airway management, video-based research in pediatric resuscitation, and quality improvement in pediatric resuscitation. He lives in Cincinnati with his wife, also Dr. Kerrey, and their three children, Will, Evelyn, and Thomas. He is, genetically, a Nebraska Cornhusker fan. He can be contacted at benjamin.kerrey@cchmc.org.
Gary Geis, MD
Dr. Gary Geis is a Pediatric Emergency Medicine physician, Medical Director of the Center for Simulation, and past Chair of the Medical Resuscitation Committee at Cincinnati Children’s. He is an experienced clinical researcher who has served as both a principal investigator and co-investigator on multiple nationally funded clinical trials. His research interests include medical simulation, systems integration, patient safety, and pediatric resuscitation, particularly endotracheal intubation. Through his research, he and his team seek to strengthen airway management and team-based care for critically ill and injured children. He has received multiple teaching awards throughout his career. He can be contacted at gary.geis@cchmc.org.
Glenda Grawe, MD
Dr. Glenda Grawe is a Pediatric Emergency Medicine physician at the University of Utah Department of Pediatrics, Division of Emergency Medicine, with previous faculty appointments at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center and Baylor College of Medicine. She has over two decades of clinical experience spanning academic, rural, and community settings, including Southcentral Foundation in Alaska. Her interests include pediatric trauma, disaster medicine, rural medicine, low-resource care of critically ill children, and leveraging pediatric emergency medicine as a telemedicine service to improve rural care. She is a site lead for a multicenter study on skeletal surveys in young children with head injury and has researched pediatric trauma patterns and prevention strategies. She can be contacted at glenda.grawe@hsc.utah.edu.
Katherine Edmunds, MD, MEd
Dr. Katie Edmunds is a Pediatric Emergency Medicine physician, Co-Medical Director of the Shock Trauma Suite, and Co-Chair of the Medical Resuscitation Committee at Cincinnati Children’s. Her clinical focus is improving the care of critically ill pediatric patients, particularly those undergoing endotracheal intubation. She earned a master’s degree in medical education, allowing her to combine her clinical and educational interests as one of the lead airway educators at Cincinnati Children’s. She teaches weekly airway courses for Pediatric Emergency Medicine fellows and faculty and has presented at local, regional, and national airway conferences. She can be contacted at katherine.edmunds@cchmc.org.
Krystal Cherney, MD
Dr. Krystal Cherney is a Pediatric Emergency Medicine physician and Associate Program Director for the Pediatric Emergency Medicine Fellowship at the University of Nebraska Medical Center/Children’s Nebraska. She serves as Chair of Research and Simulation Director for the fellowship and oversees the emergency department’s monthly journal club and literature review. Her interests include medical resuscitation, simulation, quality improvement, immunization advocacy, and medical education. She is especially interested in improving provider competency in rare but life-saving procedures and validating how providers maintain competency in these critical skills. She can be contacted at kcherney@childrensnebraska.org.
Shannon Kostin, MD
Dr. Shannon Kostin is a Pediatric Emergency Medicine physician who will join the faculty at Albany Medical Center/Albany Medical College in the fall of 2026. During fellowship, her clinical focus was pediatric sepsis. She served on Morristown Medical Center’s IPSO Committee, completed quality improvement projects within the children’s hospital, and led numerous educational events for residents, staff, faculty, and the broader community. In addition to sepsis and medical resuscitation, her interests include graduate medical education, simulation, and healthcare literacy. She looks forward to establishing herself as a faculty member and contributing to the academic PEM community.
Tanner Heckle, MD, MPH, MEd
Dr. Tanner Heckle is a Pediatric Emergency Medicine physician and proud member of the Section of Emergency Medicine at Children’s Hospital Colorado. He developed an interest in medical resuscitation performance, quality, and research during his fellowship at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. His academic interests include pediatric airway management, resuscitation science, and innovative approaches to medical education. When not discussing procedural skills, he enjoys talking about virtual escape rooms and other gamification strategies for medical education. He and his wife, Natalie, love to be in the sunshine and exploring the wonderful food scene of Colorado. He can be contacted at tanner.heckle@childrenscolorado.org.
What we do
The purpose of the PEM ResCue subcommittee is to address the challenges of high-risk, low-frequency pediatric medical emergencies. PEM ResCue is intended to be a national and potentially international “home” for those PEM clinicians who have an interest in medical resuscitation. We intend for this group to be inclusive of all disciplines and professions. PEM ResCue’s long-term objectives are to facilitate multicenter PEM resuscitation research, to disseminate best practices in pediatric resuscitation, and to expand improvement initiatives to optimize the care and outcomes for children with medical emergencies. Join us at our future meetings.
At-Large Meetings: We meet quarterly, on the third Friday of January, April, July, and October at 1pm EST. In these meetings, we will review an interesting case with focused questions to generate conversation. We also discuss ongoing projects and leave plenty of room for members to ask their own questions. Putting our heads together always generates helpful conversation to understand how people are practicing across the country and where we can move as experts caring for critically ill children.
Educational Activities: Prior to every at-large meeting, we host an educational activity. PEM Pulse Check occurs in January and July where we review important literature in pediatric resuscitation. Airway Replay occurs in April and October, often includes video supplementation, and we discuss all things intubation.
Accomplishments
Check out our recent publication:
Shah, A., Heckle, T., Edmunds, K., Dean, P., Geis, G., Kopp, T., Nagler, J., Neubrand, T., Donoghue, A., Runkle, A., Yeung, C., Madhok, M., Sudanagunta, S., Hoehn, E., Cherney, K., Krack, A., Bennett, B., O’Connell, K., Gaglani, A., Popovsky, E., … Kerrey, B. (2026). A Survey of Medical Resuscitation Practices and Resources in Academic Pediatric Emergency Departments. Pediatric emergency care, 10.1097/PEC.0000000000003607. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1097/PEC.0000000000003607.
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