Emergency Medicine
University Pediatricians | Michigan
Our Leadership Team
As Medical Director, my focus is on what you will experience here every day. A busy, high-acuity pediatric emergency department that is safe, efficient, and relentlessly committed to high-quality care. As a fellow in our department, you will be immersed in this culture and learn to efficiently navigate and manage a department. Safety and quality of care are at the center of everything we do, and you will learn to provide the best care, and to develop and participate in projects that drive improvement. We do this all in an open, and team centered environment.
Children’s Hospital of Michigan Emergency Department Facts:
Emergency Medicine Programs
We aim to provide the best evidence-based care to our children. Care is driven by discovery. We have dozens of active research projects in the Division of Emergency Medicine. We are one of only a few Children’s Emergency Departments to be awarded a NIH grant, and we have earned 3. Our research team is led by Dr. Nirupama Kannikeswaran, our research director. Dr. Kannikeswaran mentor’s faculty in our ED to design effective projects, she helps us collaborate with other subspecialties within our hospital and she helps us work with other pediatric emergency departments around the country on joint projects.
The faculty of the Emergency Department at the Children’s Hospital of Michigan strive for excellence and are seeking opportunities to work with our community to grow, collaborate and innovate.
We have a robust quality program that relentlessly measures our care and strives to drive improvement in care. We have an interdisciplinary team that develops clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) that help us standardize care throughout our entire Institution. Many of our more than 30 CPGs have resulted in significant improvement in care and better outcomes. Dr. Kelly Levasseur, the Vice-Chief and Medical Director of the ED has led the development of our CPGs. Some examples include:
- Nebulized TXA resulting in the reduced need to return to the OR for post-tonsillectomy bleeding.
- Reducing radiation exposure for children with minor head injury.
- Reduced the time to antibiotics for immunocompromised patients with fever who are at risk for severe infections.
Our team has also worked closely with ENT and Anesthesia to develop an Institution-wide difficult airway algorithm to ensure patients with life-threatening breathing concerns can be stabilized. We have worked closely with our pediatric surgery team to reduce the time to sedation and pain medication for children with burns. In 2025, we began using inhaled nitrous oxide to help in the care of children with minor burns, which allows us to provide pain-free care, without the need for an IV. Lastly, we have worked with the pediatric team to standardize the care for patients in our hospital with respiratory illnesses such as bronchiolitis and asthma.
Our Quality team is led by Dr. Rajan Arora who supervises the implementation of all of our projects and mentors faculty to drive improvement in care. Dr. Arora is on the board of MEDIC (Michigan Emergency Department Improvement Collaborative), a state-wide collaborative that began in 2015 and helps improve the care children receive in all of the EDs in the State of Michigan. Dr. Paul Patek, our Assistant Quality Director helps us review all safety reports to ensure that we are providing care that our patients deserve, and service that they expect. He also drives our Kaizen initiative, where we regularly look at our processes and improve them.
We are focused upon meeting the needs of our patients and families, which includes being ready for rare and unexpected situations. Dr. Kersten Bond, the hospital Medical Director of Preparedness helps us be ready for any circumstance by leading regular hospital-wide drills to ensure that we are ready to deploy personnel, equipment, medications and even operating room capacity in response to any need. Dr. Bond has specialized training in disaster preparedness, and leads efforts on the DMC campus. She is also integrated into the community through Detroit EMS, and the region through her work with the Region V for Kids Disaster Center of Excellence, which is Federally funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
We now use the ultrasound as an adjunct to the physical exam, which enables us to rapidly identify certain conditions, to perform procedures more safely, and improving the accuracy of our care. This program is led by Dr. Jen Noble and Dr. Camila Ospina Jiminez, who have performed an extra year of ultrasound fellowship training. They are dedicated teachers, and have provided invaluable education to our faculty, fellows and nurses.
Pediatric Emergency Medicine Faculty
Our Team is Dedicated to You
Rajan Arora, M.D.
Director of Quality. Clinical Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Emergency Medicine.
Michelle Behrendt, M.D.
Assistant Professor
Kersten Bond, D.O.
Medical Director of Disaster Preparedness. Clinical Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Emergency Medicine
Amy Cortis, M.D.
Assistant Professor
Amy M. Delaroche, M.D.
Assistant Program Director. Clinical Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Emergency Medicine.
Rita Haddad, M.D.
Assistant Program Director. Assistant Professor
Elizabeth K. Holzworth, M.D.
Assistant Professor
Nirupama Kannikeswaran, M.D.
Research Director. Clinical Professor of Pediatrics and Emergency Medicine
Rasha Kazi, M.D.
Assistant Professor
Hon K. Lee, M.D.
Assistant Professor
Karima Lelak, M.D.
Clinical Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Emergency Medicine
Kelly Levasseur, D.O.
Vice Chief and Medical Director. Clinical Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Emergency Medicine
Breanna Lorenzen, M.D.
Clinical Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Emergency Medicine
Karolina Maksimowski, M.D.
Clinical Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Emergency Medicine
Colleen Mayhew, M.D.
Assistant Professor
Shazia Maqbool, M.D.
Assistant Professor
Katie McVety, M.D.
Program Director. Clinical Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Emergency Medicine
Colin Mervak, M.D.
Assistant Professor
Peter A Nguyen, M.D.
Assistant Professor
Jennifer Noble, M.D.
Assistant Professor
Paul Patek, M.D.
Assistant Quality Director. Clinical Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Emergency Medicine
Michelle Rivera, M.D.
Assistant Professor
Kalavathy K. Srinivasan, M.D.
Assistant Professor
Curt Stankovic, M.D.
Chief. Clinical Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Emergency Medicine
Helene E. Tigchelaar, M.D.
Assistant Professor
