Rachel P. Simmons, MD - Internal Medicine Residency Director
Hometown: Indianapolis, IN
Undergrad: Purdue University
Medical School: Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Email: rsimmons4@lifespan.org
Phone: 401-444-4083Dr. Simmons spent her formative years near Detroit, Indianapolis, and Philadelphia. She attended Johns Hopkins University for medical school and completed her residency, chief residency, and infectious diseases training at Massachusetts General Hospital. For nine years, she was an Associate Program Director at Boston University. She became Program Director at Brown University in 2022, and her interests include evaluation of clinical competence, assessment, equitable practices in graduate medical education recruitment, and infectious diseases education.
She loves exploring the beaches and bakeries of Rhode Island with her children and husband. She enjoys reading (mostly fiction), running, hiking and is looking forward to doing more traveling.
Kelly McGarry, MD - Program Director, General Internal Medicine/Primary Care
Hometown: Warwick, RI
Undergrad: Brown University
Medical School: Yale University
Email: kmcgarry@lifespan.org
Phone: 401-444-8060Dr. McGarry joined the Division of General Medicine at Brown in 1996 and has been here ever since! She became the Associate Program Director for the GIM/Primary Care program in 1998 and then Program Director for GIM/Primary Care in 2007. She became the Division Director for General Internal Medicine, one of the largest divisions within the Department of Medicine, in 2020. She sees primary care patients at Brown Medicine Academic Practice in the Women’s Health Division and serves as a ward attending on our Med B Service. She has received numerous teaching awards from the medical students and residents. Her scholarly areas of interest include primary care and medical education, mentoring in academic medicine careers, care of vulnerable populations, including the LGBT community, and women’s health. She values the connection to patients and her learners and finds joy and fulfillment in helping students and residents grow professionally and personally. Dr. McGarry currently serves the broader Internal Medicine community as the governor of the Rhode Island ACP Chapter.
Outside of work, she enjoys spending time with family and friends and anything outdoors, especially running, biking, and hiking.
Stephanie Catanese, MD - Associate Residency Director, General Internal Medicine/Primary Care
Hometown: Parkland, FL
Undergrad: University of Florida
Medical School:Temple University School of Medicine
Email: scatanese@lifespan.org
Phone: 401-444-5953Dr. Stephanie Catanese is the Associate Residency Director for the General Internal Medicine (GIM) Program. A graduate of Temple University School of Medicine and the Brown General Internal Medicine/Primary Care Track, Dr. Catanese focuses her role on Performance Assessment, Academic Support, and Professional Development. She is a member of our Residency Clinical Competency Committee and has a special interest in working with learners requiring extra support. She enjoys caring for primary care patients at our academic practice as well as on the inpatient wards, where she teaches residents and students. She continues to be a formidable force on the Volleyball court as a member of the ACE Inhibitors. In addition to her central role in residency leadership, she chairs the Department of Medicine’s Committee for Physician Well-being.
Beth Gentilesco, MD - Associate Residency Director
Hometown: New York City
Undergrad: Amherst College
Medical School: Cornell Medical School
Email: BGentilesco@lifespan.org
Phone: 401-444-4083Dr. Gentilesco grew up in New York, and completed her undergraduate degree in Geology from Amherst College. She attended Cornell Medical School, and went west to complete residency at Stanford University. She has worked as an academic hospitalist since 2004, and has been on the faculty at Brown since 2007. In addition to her central role in residency leadership, she chairs the Department of Medicine’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee. She has ongoing scholarly projects concerning the teaching of race and racism in medical training. She is passionate about bringing justice to patients and the medical community. She enjoys caring for patients on the inpatient wards, where she teaches residents and students. She embraces the Brown ethos of open-minded and open-hearted thinking and care. She is an avid reader of fiction, loves crossword puzzles, and all things French.
Ross W. Hilliard, MD - Associate Residency Director
Hometown: Oak Ridge, TN
Undergrad: Rhodes College, Memphis, TN
Medical School: University of South Carolina School of Medicine, Columbia, SC
Email: rosshilliard@brown.edu
Phone: 401-444-4083Dr. Hilliard is graduate of the Brown General Internal Medicine (GIM) program at Brown and a former Chief Resident, he enjoys the chance to work with residents in all areas of their Internal Medicine education. He considers it a privilege to watch residents progress through their time at Brown, finding their own professional “fit,” and building plans for future independent practice. Particular interests include patient safety and quality improvement along with the Medical Informatics and the Electronic Medical Record (EMR). As the Director of Medical Informatics for the Lifespan health system, he works with a team to improve the hospital system’s EPIC EMR so that it can better serve patients, physicians, and other allied health professionals. He furthers this work nationally as a member of the ACP Council of Early Career Physicians and as a member of National ACP’s Education and Medical Informatics Committees.
In addition, Dr. Hilliard serves as the Medical Director for the Rhode Island Free Clinic where he sees patients and spends time precepting medical students in the student-run clinic. He also is involved in community outreach particularly in Providence as the Medical Director for the Lifespan Community Health Institute. He is also Faculty at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) and serves as an advisor to the IHI Open School for Health Professions.
Jennifer Jeremiah, MD - Associate Residency Director
Hometown: Cranston, RI
Undergrad: Brown University
Medical School: Brown Medical School
Email: jjeremiah@lifespan.org
Phone: 401-444-4083Dr. Jeremiah, a Brown lifer (undergraduate, medical school and residency) has been on the Brown faculty since graduation and has been privileged to be an Associate Program Director for the last fifteen years. Her passion in medical education is ensuring that residents receive the information and support they need to reach their highest potential during training. She chairs the Department of Medicine Clinical Competence Committee (CCC) whose responsibility is to review resident progress, identify areas to help residents grow and create action plans so that all residents will become consummate internists. She is also the Director of Faculty Development in Clinical Education. In this role, Dr. Jeremiah provides programs to help educators be astute evaluators and providers of valuable, actionable feedback. Dr. Jeremiah sees primary care patients in the Brown Medicine Academic Practice (BMAP) and serves as a Med B ward attending at Rhode Island Hospital. When asked about her favorite aspects of her role, Dr. Jeremiah states “I have the privilege of watching our residents become accomplished, independent, caring, and confident clinicians.”
Dr. Jeremiah currently lives over the RI border in Rehoboth MA with her husband Vince, dog Scooter and multiple other noisy farm animals. She has two children, Vincent who just graduated from college and is gainfully employed in East Providence, Rhode Island and a daughter Penelope who is a rising college junior. She loves all kinds of outdoor activities, has hiked in 16 national parks, perhaps unwisely horseback rides, and loves the beach and the mountains of Maine.
Hussain Khawaja, MD - Assistant Residency Director for Preliminary Interns
Hometown: Lahore, Pakistan
Medical School: Aga Khan University Medical College, Karachi, Pakistan
Email: hussain_khawaja@brown.edu
Phone: 401-444-5312Dr. Khawaja joined the Division of General Internal Medicine in 2014 and has been the Inpatient service chief at Rhode Island Hospital since 2015. In addition to being the Assistant Program Director for the Preliminary Interns, he also serves as the Vice chair of the Residency Clinical Competence Committee (CCC). His interests include medical education, faculty development, mentorship, and quality improvement. Dr. Khawaja feels passionate about his clinician educator role in which he cares for patients in the inpatient and the outpatient settings, while working with residents and medical students.
Outside of work, he loves spending time with his family, exploring the extremely amazing food scene in Providence, doing Peloton workouts and going to different Rhode Island beaches in the summer.
Jessica Murphy, MD - Associate Residency Director for Ambulatory Care
Hometown: Thousand Oaks, CA
Undergrad: University of California – Berkeley
Medical School: University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
Email: jessica_murphy1@brown.edu
Phone: 401-444-4934Dr. Murphy grew up in California and completed her undergraduate education at UC Berkeley. She attended the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and went on to complete her Primary Care-Internal Medicine Residency at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Following residency, she completed a General Internal Medicine Fellowship, a Preventive Medicine Residency, and a Master of Science in Health Services Research at Boston University. She joined faculty at Brown in 2017, and in 2018 completed the Harvard Macy Program for Health Professions Educators.
Dr. Murphy sees primary care patients and precepts residents at the Center for Primary Care, and serves as a ward attending on the inpatient service at Rhode Island Hospital. She takes joy in the relationships she has with her patients and in helping residents gain confidence and skills as they progress through their training. Dr. Murphy oversees the continuity clinic experience and the ambulatory curriculum for our residents, and also serves as a Bias Reduction in Medicine (BRiM) implementer and a Clinician Educator Track mentor. Her scholarly areas of interest include primary care, medical education, resident evaluation, direct observation, inbox management, and social determinants of health. Outside of work, she enjoys spending time with her family, working on her home renovation and doing anything outdoors, including hiking, biking, gardening, and snowshoeing.
Fred J. Schiffman, MD - Associate Residency Director
Hometown: New York City
Undergrad: Wagner College
Medical School: New York University
Email: fred_schiffman@brown.edu
Phone: 401-793-4035Fred J. Schiffman, M.D. is a hematologist/oncologist at Brown and Lifespan. Dr. Schiffman is the Sigal Family Professor of Humanistic Medicine at Brown, Vice Chairman of the Department of Medicine of the Warren Alpert School of Medicine at Brown University, and Associate Director of the Categorical Residency Program at Brown. He is the Associate Physician-in-Chief at The Miriam Hospital. His areas of expertise include malignant and non-malignant hematological problems and disorders of the spleen. Dr, Schiffman has published in a broad range of hematologic areas and on a variety of subjects regarding the education of students and house staff. The recently awarded Sigal Family Professorship in Humanistic Medicine has allowed him to lead and participate in several programs in the arts dealing with the interface between humanities and medicine, such as the Cops and Docs Program at the Museum of the Rhode Island School of Design. In 2018, he co-edited a hematology textbook “Anemia: Pathophysiology, Diagnosis and Management”, and in 2022, he was the co-editor for “Cecil’s Essentials of Medicine”.
Dominick Tammaro, MD - Vice Chair of Education
Hometown: Brooklyn, NY
Undergrad: Brown University
Medical School: Brown Medical School
Email: dominick_tammaro@brown.edu
Phone: 401-444-5577Dominick Tammaro, MD completed his residency at Saint Vincent Hospital/UMASS, completing a PGY4 Chief Resident Year. He subsequently returned to Providence to join the Brown faculty, where he has been involved in residency education ever since. He has served Brown and our residents as Residency Director since 1991 and over those years has overseen development of The Rhode Island Hospital Geographic Ward Service (Med B), founded the Brown Med-Peds Residency, and received several program development grants, most recently for development of our new Ultrasound-Guided Procedure Curriculum. He regularly attends on the Medicine Wards and Medical Consult Service. He has received numerous teaching awards and has been elected to AOA, Gold Humanism Society and most recently was awarded Mastership in the American College of Physicians. His professional interest is in Perioperative Medical Care.
Dr. Tammaro is a former Eagle Scout and enjoys backpacking throughout the northeast, spending as much time in the White Mountains as possible. He and his daughters recently completed the 500-mile Camino de Santiago route in France and Spain, as well as the 100-mile Dingle Way in County Kerry, Ireland. Dr. Tammaro is currently thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail!
