RAC
The mission of the Residency Advisory Committee (RAC) is to promote a residency training experience that is aligned with preventive medicine practice.
The Institute of Occupational & Environmental Health Residency Advisory Committee (RAC)
L-R: C. Werntz, J. Becker, E. Scharman, D. Deeter, S. Guffey, C. Martin
West Virginia University's Occupational Medicine Residency Advisory Committee consists of the following members:
David Deeter, MD, MPH, MHA - Chair
Dr. Deeter has served as our RAC Chair since 2004. He received his MD at Ohio State University College of Medicine, his MPH at Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health and his MHA at Baylor University. Dr. Deeter currently is John Deere's Associate Corporate Medical Director in Moline, IL. Before moving to IL, he served as Medical Director with General Motors for 10 years. Dr. Deeter had been on active duty in the U.S. Army for more than 20 years – among his many assignments were his services as the Residency Program Director for the Army's Occupational Medicine Residency Program from 1988 to 1993.
James Becker, MD
Dr. Becker has served on the RAC since 2003. He comes to us with a wide-range of experience in occupational medicine by previously serving as Commissioner to the Office of Medical Management of BrickStreet Mutual Insurance Company (formerly State of WV Workers Compensation Commission) as well as the WV Offices of the Insurance Commissioner. His special interests include toxicology, occupational lung disease and agricultural medicine. He teaches a section on edible plants and mushrooms for the Wilderness Medicine program at Marshall University where he is currently Associate Professor and Director of Clinical Services for Occupational Medicine.
Steven Guffey, PhD, CIH
Dr. Guffey has served on the RAC since 2003. He is a Professor in the Industrial and Management Systems Engineering Department within West Virginia University, and he serves as the Program Coordinator for the Industrial Hygiene Masters of Science program. His research focuses are ventilation design (especially hood design), noise control, hearing protector effectiveness, and experimental exposure assessment. Other activities include providing industrial hygiene consultation and ventilation system evaluations and design for industrial operations. Dr. Guffey received his PhD in Industrial Hygiene from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Scott D. Leslie, MD, MPH, CIME
Dr. Leslie is the newest member of the RAC having joined this year. He received his M.D. and occupational medicine residency from the West Virginia University School of Medicine in 2004 and 2008 respectively. After completing his residency Dr. Leslie worked in Findlay, Ohio. While there he practiced occupational medicine for Fremont Memorial Hospital.
In 2011, Dr. Leslie returned to his hometown of Washington, Pennsylvania, and became the medical director of the Occupational Medicine Center at The Washington Hospital.
John Meyer, MD, MPH
Dr. Meyer is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences in the School of Public Health at SUNY-Downstate in Brooklyn. Dr. Meyer received his MD from Cornell University Medical College, and his MPH from the Boston University School of Public Health. He joined the Downstate SPH faculty after positions in academic occupational health at WVU, the University of Connecticut Health Center, and the University of Manchester (UK). He has served on the NIOSH Study Section for Occupational Safety and Health for several years and is on the International Editorial Advisory Board for the journal Occupational Medicine (UK). He was president of the Association of Occupational and Environmental Clinics (AOEC) in 2004, and served on its Board for two terms. He directed occupational medicine residency programs at WVU and UConn. He currently directs the ACOEM Occupational Medicine Board Reivew course. He has served as chair of the Connecticut Medical Examining Board for Disability Retirement and as consulting physician to the CT Department of Transportation and Department of Insurance. Dr. Meyer's research has focused on using administrative datasets and longitudinal surveys to evaluate occupational risk factors, the psychosocial hazards of work, and health disparities in minority populations mediated by work characteristics. He has been the PI on several grants from NIOSH and the NICHD, investigating occupational characteristics and their link to adverse pregnancy outcomes, risk for heavy drinking and alcohol use disorders, and exposures and methods of transition to the use of environmentally preferable cleaning products ("Green Cleaning") in janitorial and housekeeping personnel.
Ashish D. Nimbarte, PhD
Dr. Nimbarte became member of the RAC in 2011. He received his Ph.D. in the Interdisciplinary program in Engineering Science majoring in Industrial Engineering from the Louisiana State University. He is an Assistant Professor in the Industrial and Management Systems Engineering Department at West Virginia University and serves as the Program Coordinator for the Occupational Safety and Health Engineering (OSHE) program. His research interest is in the general area of work related musculoskeletal disorders, with a primary emphasis on the cervical spine disorders.
Elizabeth Scharman, Pharm.D., DABAT, BCPS, FAACT
Dr. Scharman is a tenured Professor of Clinical Pharmacy at West Virginia University. She received a B.S. in Pharmacy (1986) from Butler University and a Pharm.D. (1991) from Virginia Commonwealth University (Medical College of Virginia) then completed a Clinical Toxicology Fellowship (1992) at the Pittsburgh Poison Center/University of Pittsburgh. She is currently the Director of the West Virginia Poison Center; a position she has held since July 1992. She is currently the Deputy Strategic National Stockpile Coordinator for West Virginia. She is involved in multiple disaster related projects in West Virginia including being an active member and past Chair of the Kanawha/Putnam Emergency Planning Committee. Her research focus involves evidence-based evaluations of clinical toxicology practice.
Eileen Storey, MD, MPH
Dr. Storey returned to WV in 2008 after working at the University of Connecticut Health Center where she established the Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine in the Department of Medicine which sponsored a residency from 1991 to 2009. She currently serves as Chief of the Surveillance Branch in the Division of Respiratory Disease Studies, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Dr. Storey received her MD and MPH from Harvard Medical School. She completed internal medicine training at West Virginia University in 1981 and is Board certified in Internal Medicine and Occupational Medicine. Her research interests include occupational respiratory disease, indoor environments, isocyanates and asthma, and surveillance methods. She is also involved in the national effort to ensure public health utility of electronic health records, with a focus on their use in early recognition and tracking of occupational illness and injury.