Professor and Chair
Department of Emergency Medicine
Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University
Past President of the American Academy of Emergency Medicine
Chief Medical Officer, AAEM Physician Group
Robert McNamara, MD MAAEM currently serves as Chairman at Temple University Hospital, the busiest Level 1 Trauma center in the Delaware Valley. Dr. McNamara served as AAEM’s President from 1996 until 2002. In 2015, he became the CMO of the newly created AAEM Physician Group which seeks to preserve physician-owned practices in Emergency Medicine. His professional experience includes twice serving as CMO of Temple University Hospital, he was also the CMO of Temple University Physicians for 13 years and Chair of the MEC at TUH for 18 years. He has published peer reviewed articles on practice issues, due process and patient flow.
Mark Reiter, MD MBA MAAEM FAEM is a partner in Middle Tennessee Emergency Physicians, a 70 physician independent, democratic practice, where he is also the serves on the Executive Board. Dr. Reiter is Professor and Residency Director of the University of Tennessee- Nashville/Murfreesboro emergency medicine residency. He also earned an MBA from the Rutgers Business School. Dr. Reiter completed his emergency medicine residency at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Dr. Reiter is the CEO of Emergency Excellence, a company dedicated to emergency medicine performance improvement, which offers services including patient callbacks (discharge phone calls), benchmarking, and consulting.
Dr. Reiter has been very active in organized medicine. He served on the Board of Directors for the American Academy of Emergency Medicine from 2005 to 2020 and served as national President from 2014 to 2016. He currently serves as CEO of the AAEM Physician Group, where he has coordinated the launch of the AAEM Consultation Service. He has served on the Council on Legislation for the American Medical Association and the Board of Trustees for the Medical Society of New Jersey.
Thomas Tobin, MD MBA FAAEM is a CMO at Colorado West Health System, consisting of a hospital, ASC, multiple clinics including primary care and specialist with over 300 physicians on staff. He also earned an MBA from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Dr. Tobin completed his emergency medicine residency at the University of Pittsburgh.
Dr. Tobin has been active in organized medicine, serving on the Board of Directors for the American Academy of Emergency Medicine. He currently serves as on the Board of the AAEM Physician Group. In addition, he is on the Board of Selkirk Pharma in Spokane, WA.
Arthur Smolensky, MD FAAEM is a partner, Chief Financial and Chief Operating Officer in Middle Tennessee Emergency Physicians an independent private practice group in the Nashville area. Dr. Smolensky is also an assistant professor, Director of Informatics and Documentation with the University of Tennessee-Nashville/Murfreesboro emergency medicine residency. Prior to coming to Nashville Dr. Smolensky was the Human Resources Director and was on the Executive Board of a private emergency medicine practice in the Phoenix area. He completed his emergency medicine residency and was Chief Resident at the University of Arizona. Dr. Smolensky also is the President of Premier Scribes, a medical scribe service whose aim is to allow physicians to focus on patient care while ensuring chart accuracy and quality.
Dr. Smolensky also serves as the Secretary of AAEM Physician Group and serves as the Secretary-Treasurer of the Tennessee Chapter Division of AAEM. He also previously served on the Arizona ACEP chapter board of directors.
Andy Walker graduated cum laude from the University of Tennessee College of Medicine in Memphis in 1985, where he was elected to membership in Alpha Omega Alpha. He completed a residency in emergency medicine at the University of Florida College of Medicine-Jacksonville in 1988. After employment with a couple of corporate staffing companies coming out of residency, he eventually settled at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, becoming an Asst. Professor of Emergency Medicine and twice winning the Corey Slovis Award for Excellence in Bedside Teaching.
After leaving Vanderbilt Dr. Walker spent many years with Cumberland Emergency Physicians, a one-hospital democratic group in Nashville, before taking up locum tenens emergency medicine while working half-time in semi-retirement. He has served on AAEM’s board of directors, was editor of Common Sense for five years, has chaired AAEM’s Government and National Affairs Committee as well as its COVID-19 Support Task Force, and is currently treasurer of the AAEM-Physician Group. He has been vice-president and president of TNAAEM, AAEM’s Tennessee state chapter division, and remains on its board of directors. He lectured at the Academy’s Scientific Assembly in 2013, 2016, and 2018. AAEM has honored Dr. Walker with both its James Keaney Leadership Award (2013) and David K. Wagner Award (2019).
Dr. Walker writes frequently for a variety of newspapers and newsletters on the intersection of medicine, politics, and public policy and has been interviewed by media outlets such as The Nashville Tennessean, ED Legal Letter, and AAEM and RSA podcasts. He continues to attempt to bring a voice of reason to medical litigation through consultation with attorneys and expert witness testimony.
Dr. Walker and his wife Sherry now live on Walden’s Ridge, just outside Chattanooga, with their lazy, spoiled, and overweight hound dog, Motlow.
Algis Baliunas, MD FAAEM is currently the director of the Emergency Department at Beacon Bremen Hospital in Bremen, Indiana. He graduated from Rush University in 2003 and completed his residency in Emergency Medicine and University of Florida Jacksonville in 2006.
Dr. Baliunas has been a practicing Emergency Physician for 15 years, 12 of those years at South Bend Emergency Physicians, an AAEM practice group. He has practiced in academic medicine as part time faculty for the University of Florida.
Dr. Baliunas also serves as Medical Director-Michigan and Medical Coordinator-Texas for Curative Medical Associates, a start-up company distributing COVID-19 vaccine in those states.
Dr. Baliunas has performed research with the University of Notre Dame. In 2015, he was awarded a grant from Advanced Diagnostics and Therapeutics for clinical direction in his work with micro-RNA point of care testing.
In his spare time, Dr. Baliunas enjoys sailing, biking, time with his fiancee and children and country dancing.
- Additional consultation hours available for a discounted rate of $300/hour (pricing for non-AAEM-PG members is $500/hour)
L.E. Gomez, MD MBA FAAEM is medical director for one of the largest occupational health urgent care centers in the Baltimore-Washington Metro Area. Previously on the faculty of Howard University College of Medicine, he earned his undergraduate degree from Cornell University, MD from the Ichan School of Medicine, and completed internship in medicine at Boston University prior to residency in emergency medicine at the University of Chicago Hospitals. He has healthcare business consulting experience in business performance, budget analysis, process engineering, and improvement of patient experience. He has served as consulting clinician for CMS MIPS and a former AAEM Advocacy Congressional Fellow. Dr. Gomez has published original research on the economic power of diversity to improve performance, outcomes, and influence culture. He serves as liaison to our board for Social Emergency Medicine and Population Health at AAEM and a current MPH candidate in the Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Program.