ABOUT

Medical Advisors 

A team of devoted professionals providing us with guidance and insight on the latest research and findings in the fight against influenza.

Jon S. Abramson, M.D.

Dr. Jon S. Abramson received his undergraduate training at Boston University and his medical degree from Wake Forest University School of Medicine (WFUSM), where he also completed a residency in pediatrics. He completed his fellowship in pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Minnesota.

In 1981, Dr. Abramson joined the faculty at Wake Forest University School of Medicine and then in 1996 became the Weston M. Kelsey Professor and Chair of the Department of Pediatrics at WFUSM as well as the Physician-in-chief of Brenner Children’s Hospital in 1996. Since 2002 he has also served as the elected Chair of the Wake Forest University Physicians, the group responsible for oversight of the clinical practice organization. Currently, Dr. Abramson serves as member of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Task Force on Immunizations, the AAP Committee on Federal Government Affairs and is Chair of the AAP Task Force on Pediatric Devices. He is a member of the Association of Medical School Pediatric Department Chairs (AMSPDC) Executive Board and a member of the National Vaccine Advisory Group Finance Committee. Additionally, he serves as a consultant to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on issues related to influenza, seasonal planning, and pandemic planning.

Michael J. Anderson, M.D., S.C. 

Dr. Anderson is a practicing adult infectious disease physician located in Kanakee, Illinois. He is Board-certified in Infectious Disease and Internal Medicine by the American Board of Internal Medicine. Dr. Anderson received his undergraduate training in Biomedical Sciences at Marquette University and his doctorate of medicine at Creighton University School of Medicine at Omaha, Nebraska. He completed his internal medicine residency at the University of Chicago (North Shore) Internal Medicine Program and his infectious disease fellowship at the University of Wisconsin. 

As part of his duties at Metro Infectious Disease Consultants, LLC in Kanakee, IL, Dr. Anderson performs inpatient and outpatient consultations and follow-up care for adult immunocompromised patients (e.g., diabetes, HIV/AIDS), manages outpatient parenteral anti-infective therapy and biological infusions, and serves as the supervising physician for physician assistants. Additionally, he currently serves on several committees, including the Infection Control Committees for Amita Health St. Mary’s Hospital and Riverside Medical Center, and serves as the Physician Chair for the Antimicrobial Stewardship Committee at Amita Health St. Mary’s Hospital in Kankakee, Illinois. Dr. Anderson holds faculty positions at the Riverside Medical Center Osteopathic Residency Program, Midwestern University Osteopathic Postdoctoral Training Institution, and Des Moines University College of Osteopathic Medicine. 

Over the course of his career, Dr. Anderson has received numerous honors and awards, including an Outstanding ID Fellow Award in 2014. He is currently a member of the Gold Humanism Honor Society. Additionally, Dr. Anderson has co-authored several peer-reviewed journal articles and abstracts. 

Dr. Anderson has been a medical advisor for Families Fighting Flu since March 2019. 

Kevin A. Ault, M.D.

Matthew J. Cory, M.D.

Dr. Matthew Cory received his undergraduate training from the University of South Florida and his medical degree from the University of South Florida College of Medicine. He completed his internship and residency training in general pediatrics at the Medical College of Virginia.

Dr. Cory is a pediatrician and medical director at Lakeside Pediatrics in Lakeland, FL. He received Board Certification by the American Board of Pediatrics and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Dr. Cory maintains active medical staff status at the Lakeland Regional Medical Center and has served as chairperson of the Department of Pediatrics and as a Board member and chairperson of the hospital Board of Directors. He has previously served as a medical examiner for the Child Protection Team. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Central Florida Physicians Alliance and has served previously as President and Treasurer of that organization.

Dr. Cory has been a medical advisor for Families Fighting Flu since October 2011.

Andrew C. Eisenberg, M.D.

Dr. Andrew C. Eisenberg is a practicing physician in Sarasota, Florida and since 2007, has been doing Locum Tenens emergency work in multiple U.S. states. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Brown University as well as medical and master of health care administration degrees from Tulane University. Dr. Eisenberg is an adjunct professor at Texas A&M School of Rural Public Health and was an adjunct associate in Emergency Medicine at the Lake Erie College of Medicine. He currently serves as the liaison from the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Committee on Pediatric Emergency Medicine. His background also includes a position as past Chair of the Council on Quality and Practice for the AAFP and he also served for five years on the American Medical Association's steering committee commission to end healthcare disparities.

Dr. Eisenberg has been a medical advisor for Families Fighting Flu since October 2007.

Susan A. Fisher-Owens, M.D., MPH

Dr. Susan Fisher-Owens received her undergraduate training from Dartmouth College, her masters of public health from Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene & Public Health and her medical degree from George Washington University School of Medicine. She completed her residency in pediatrics (primary care) at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, DC.

Dr. Fisher-Owens is the Health Sciences Assistant Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco and a general pediatrician, working for and teaching medical students and residents to serve children from birth (in the nursery) to graduation, through well and sick visits. At San Francisco General Hospital, her focus is on providing quality primary care services to children at risk, including improving immunization uptake and oral health. At the General, she co-leads the immunization practices and also ties her research and clinical interests together by running a clinic-wide intervention to train practitioners to provide fluoride varnish for their patients at-risk for or with dental caries.

Dr. Fisher-Owens has been a medical advisor for Families Fighting Flu since May 2011.

Scott Gorenstein, M.D., FACEP

Dr. Scott Gorenstein received his undergraduate training from Washington University and his medical degree from New York Medical College. He completed his residency in Emergency Medicine at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York.

Dr. Gorenstein is the clinical director of the hyperbaric unit at Winthrop University Hospital in Mineola, New York. He is a board certified Emergency Medicine Physician with additional board certification in Undersea and Hyperbaric Medicine. He has been involved in the field of Hyperbaric Medicine and wound care since his completion of residency in 2000. Dr. Gorenstein has a particular interest in the use of hyperbaric oxygen in patients with side effects from radiation.

Click here to read about Dr. Gorenstein’s young son who survived a serious case of H1N1 influenza in 2009.

Dr. Gorenstein has been a medical advisor for Families Fighting Flu since April 2010.

Debra A. Maitre, DNP, APRN-CNS, RNC-OB, C-EFM, NEA-BC

Debra Maitre received her undergraduate degree in nursing at the University of Iowa, her master's degree from University of Oklahoma and her doctoral degree at Regis University. Debra has spent her nursing career caring for women and infants, and is a Clinical Nurse Specialist, working with women during childbearing and childrearing stages of life.  She has held leadership positions in hospital and healthcare system administration and currently teaches in graduate nursing programs across the country.  Debra has done extensive research and education on influenza vaccination for health care professionals, and is a passionate advocate for improving vaccination rates among health care professionals and patients alike.

Debra has been a medical advisor for Families Fighting Flu since March 2014.

Flor M. Munoz, M.D., MS

Dr. Munoz received her undergraduate training and medical degree from Francisco Marroquin University in Guatemala City, Guatemala. She completed her residency and fellowship in pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas.

Dr. Munoz is the Assistant Professor in the Department of Pediatrics, Section of Infectious Diseases, and the Department of Molecular Virology and Microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine. She is a clinical consultant at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston. Dr. Munoz is an investigator in the Vaccine Research Center at Baylor College of Medicine. Her research interests and work are focused on the prevention of infections through vaccination, maternal immunization and respiratory infections, including influenza, RSV, and Pertussis.

Dr. Munoz has received a number of medical honors and awards, including a Special Recognition Award given by the National Institutes of Health in honor of extraordinary work in H1N1 influenza research during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic. She has also been named, for the past six years, one of the Best Doctors in America and Leading Physician of the World Top Pediatrician in Houston, Texas by the International Association of Pediatrics.

Dr. Munoz is active on a number of professional societies, including the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society, the Society for Pediatric Research and the Infectious Diseases Society of America. She has co-authored numerous articles, abstracts and book chapters, and is frequently asked to give lectures and seminars across the country and internationally.

Dr. Munoz has been a medical advisor for Families Fighting Flu since April 2012.

Michael Northrop, M.D., FAAP

Dr. Northrop received his undergraduate degree at the College of William and Mary with a B.S. in chemistry and a minor in music. He went on to attain his medical doctorate at New York Medical College followed by a residency in general pediatrics at The Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, Virginia. 

After residency, he joined the faculty in the pediatric emergency department at The Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters, but eventually left to pursue a fellowship in pediatric critical care medicine at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. There he pursued and published peer-reviewed research on extracorporeal life support (ECLS). 

Dr. Northrop is a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics and is board certified in both general pediatrics and pediatric critical care medicine. He currently practices medicine at Brenner Children’s Hospital, part of the Wake Forest Baptist Health hospital system in North Carolina, where he teaches residents and medical students, cares for patients, and maintains the hospital database for patients requiring extracorporeal life support. 

While Dr. Northrop sees plenty of influenza cases among high-risk individuals like infants, young children and people with chronic medical conditions, he has also seen many previously healthy patients end up in the ICU and on ventilators due to flu. His own sister Liza, who was previously healthy but unvaccinated, died of influenza in 2009. This event fueled his advocacy for flu prevention and vaccination, leading him to serve as a medical advisor for Families Fighting Flu since August 2018.

Adrienne Randolph, M.D., M.Sc., FAAP, FCCM

Dr. Randolph is Professor of Anaesthesia and Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and a Senior Associate in Critical Care Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital in Massachusetts. She has been an attending physician in the Medical-Surgical pediatric ICU there for over 20 years.

Dr. Randolph is the founder and first Chair of the Pediatric Acute Lung Injury and Sepsis Investigator’s (PALISI) Network, a clinical research consortium of over 80 pediatric ICUs in the U.S. and Canada. She founded and leads the multicenter PALISI Pediatric Critical Care Influenza (PICFLU) Network (picflu.org), investigating vaccine effectiveness and immune response in children with influenza-related critical illness. PICFLU Network studies have been funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health.

Dr. Randolph has been a Council member of the International Sepsis Forum since 2011 and is active in many other professional societies including the Society for Critical Care Medicine, the Society for Pediatric Research and the American Thoracic Society.

Dr. Randolph has been a medical advisor for Families Fighting Flu since October 2009.

Jana Shaw, M.D., MPH, MS

Dr. Shaw received her undergraduate training and medical degree from Masaryk’s University Medical School in Brno, Czech Republic. She completed her residency in pediatrics at the State University of New York, Stony Brook School of Medicine in Stony Brook, New York, and completed her fellowship in pediatric infectious diseases at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland.

Dr. Shaw is an Associate Professor of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at the State University of New York Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, New York. She also serves as the Chief Medical Officer for the North Country Family Health Center in Watertown, New York. Her research interests and work are focused on school immunization requirements and vaccination coverage among children, adolescents, and college students, and pediatric immunodeficiency.

Dr. Shaw was recognized by her peers as one of the Best Doctors in America® in 2015/2016, and received an Outstanding Educator Award in 2007 and 2009 from Samaritan Medical Center in Watertown, New York. She actively collaborates with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Immunization Branch and the New York State Department of Health Immunization Bureau.

Dr. Shaw currently serves as the Chair for the Pediatric Pharmaceutical & Therapeutics Committee at the State University of New York Upstate Medical Center, and also serves on the Infection Control Committee and Pediatric Residency Evaluation and Promotion Committee. She is also active in a number of professional societies, including the Infectious Disease Society of America, Pediatric Infectious Society of America, and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

She has co-authored numerous articles, abstracts and book chapters, and is frequently asked to give lectures and seminars across the country and internationally.

Dr. Shaw has been a medical advisor for Families Fighting Flu since September 2016.

Jeb S. Teichman, M.D.

Dr. Jeb S. Teichman received his undergraduate degree in Biology from Adelphi University and a Masters degree in Anatomy from the University of Louisville where he also received his medical degree. He completed his residency in Pediatrics at Children’s Hospital of Buffalo, State University of New York (SUNY) Buffalo.

Dr. Teichman began his medical career as a pediatric hospitalist at Humana Hospital Audubon in Louisville, Kentucky in 1986. He transitioned into private practice pediatrics in 1993 when he founded Jeffersonville Pediatrics in Jeffersonville, Indiana where he practiced for the next 19 years. In 2012, Dr. Teichman made the leap to full time managed care practicing as a Medical Director for Aetna and eventually as Chief Medical Officer for United Healthcare Community Plan of Kentucky, a managed Medicaid plan where he is today.   

Dr. Teichman lost his 29-year-old son, Brent, to influenza in 2019 and his story is featured here on the FFF website.

Dr. Teichman has been a medical advisor for Families Fighting Flu since January 2021. 

Page last reviewed: March 2021