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Andrew Melnyczenko's combined military and civilian experience in Hyperbaric Medicine spans 23 years. He is the Technical and Safety Director of the Hyperbaric and Altitude Medicine Program at the Mayo Clinic. He is also a UHMS member and serves as the chair of the UHMS safety committee. Andrew’s professional interests lie in education, emergency preparedness, and advancing the practical use of Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy.

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Dr. Anthony Medak grew up in the Los Angeles Area, and has completed his education throughout Northern and Southern California. Anthony graduated from the UC San Francisco School of Medicine. He then did his residency in Emergency Medicine at Highland Hospital in Oakland, CA. Anthony wanted to start a career in Academic EM, and thus sought fellowship training. He ultimately decided to pursue a fellowship in Undersea and Hyperbaric Medicine here at UCSD. Since that time he has been a full time faculty member in our Department. His interests are in Hyperbaric Medicine, Emergency Ultrasound, and medical education. Since joining the faculty, he has collaborated with the other members of the Ultrasound Division in continuously improving and expanding the U/S curriculum at UCSD. He is the clerkship director for the Emergency Ultrasound rotation for 4th year medical students. Anthony was recognized as “Teacher of the Year” by the EM residents in 2007, and by the Medical Students in 2009, 2011, and 2012. His research interests focus within the areas of Diving and Hyperbaric Medicine as well as Emergency Ultrasound, including innovative ways to include ultrasound in undergraduate and graduate medical education. His outside interests include being outdoors (camping, running, diving), a passion for live music, playing the drums, and adding to his ever-growing record collection.

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Charles Coffey, MD, is a board-certified otolaryngologist and fellowship-trained head and neck cancer surgeon who specializes in diagnosing and treating patients with a broad range of benign and malignant tumors of the head and neck.

Dr. Coffey's surgical practice includes management of tumors of the upper aerodigestive tract, salivary glands, neck, and skull base, as well as skin cancers of the face and neck. Where appropriate, he is able to employ minimally invasive techniques to minimize post-operative morbidity, including transoral robotic surgery, laser microsurgery, and endoscopic surgery. Dr. Coffey has particular interest in salivary gland function, including prevention and management of xerostomia in head & neck cancer patients and the use of minimally-invasive techniques to treat patients with obstructive salivary disorders.

In addition to clinical practice, Dr. Coffey is dedicated to medical education. He is co-director of the UC San Diego Surgery Core Clerkship, serves as faculty of numerous medical school courses, and participates in curriculum design and review for the UC San Diego School of Medicine, UC San Diego Division of Otolaryngology, and the American Head & Neck Society. His efforts have been recognized with multiple teaching awards from students and residents. Dr. Coffey completed the ACS-ASE Surgical Education Research Fellowship in 2019. He has authored over 60 publications, chapters, and abstracts, and is currently the primary or coinvestigator on four institutional and federally funded grants.

Dr. Coffey completed a head and neck surgery fellowship at University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and a residency in otolaryngology at the Medical University of South Carolina. He earned his medical degree from University of North Carolina School of Medicine. Dr. Coffey is board certified in otolaryngology. He is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons (FACS).

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Dr. Charlotte Sadler recently graduated from the UCSD Emergency Medicine residency program where she served as a chief resident. Prior to residency she completed medical school at the University of Iowa and her undergraduate degree at Dartmouth. She previously worked as a dive master on a charter dive boat out of Maui. She is an avid diver, paddle-boarder and abalone hunter.

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Dr. Craig Kutz grew up a dairy farmer in Sheboygan, Wisconsin before playing collegiate football at MSUM. He completed physician-scientist MD/PhD training with focus in medicinal chemistry and cardiovascular physiology in Charleston, SC. Craig finished residency in Emergency Medicine at UC-San Diego Health where he simultaneously worked as an operational flight physician with local helicopter EMS. During residency, he received recognition by medical students for outstanding bedside teaching. Additionally, he achieved special distinction as a Fellow in Academy of Wilderness Medicine (FAWM) and certification in mountain rescue through Diploma in Mountain Medicine (DiMM). Craig became interested in diving medicine while working as an AAUS-certified scientific diver for the South Carolina Aquarium and strives for subspecialization in multiple areas of extreme/austere environments including undersea, high altitude, and space medicine. In his free time, he enjoys scuba diving, mountain/outdoor exploration and camping, recreational sports, riding his motorcycle, and is a general aviation pilot.

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Evan Laveman is from Southern California, where he was a beach lifeguard and EMT prior to moving to Los Angeles to complete his undergraduate and medical education at UCLA, and then his residency in Emergency Medicine at Harbor-UCLA. He was one of the chief residents during the first year of the COVID pandemic. His past academic interests and contributions have been geared towards point of care ultrasound research and education, social medicine, event medicine, EMS, and care in austere environments. In his free time he enjoys surfing, backpacking, paddleboarding, and meteorology. 

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Undergraduate: 
Medical School: University British Columbia
Residency: McGill University

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After service as an aviation survivalman, search and rescue air crewman and helicopter rescue swimmer in the U.S. Coast Guard for much of the 1980’s, Jay spent six years as an Oceanfront Lifeguard. In 1995 he became Program Director at UC San Diego Medical Center, Hillcrest. Over the ensuing two decades, he has accumulated extensive multiplace chamber operations and management experience. In 1996, Jay was certified by the NBDHMT as a hyperbaric technologist, and he also holds PALS and ACLS certifications.   

Jay received his nursing degree in 2013. He is a long-standing Associate member of the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society. He serves as a member of the National Fire Protection Association Steering Committee on Veterinary & Hyperbaric Safety and the San Diego County Diver Death Review Committee. His UHMS Annual Scientific Meeting presentations have addressed safety of inside attendants, hyperbaric patient safety and recreational diver safety. Jay is a co-author of two peer reviewed scientific publications.

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Karen Van Hoesen, MD, is a board-certified emergency medicine physician who specializes in undersea and hyperbaric medicine. She is recognized as one of the world's leading authorities on diving medicine.

Within UC San Diego Health's Hyperbaric Medicine and Wound Care Program, Dr. Van Hoesen assesses a person's fitness to dive, treats diving accidents and uses hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) to treat conditions such as decompression illness, carbon monoxide poisoning, gas gangrene, non-healing wounds and tissue damage from radiation, burns or infection.

She is also the co-director of the San Diego Center of Excellence in Diving (SDCED). In addition to her expertise in diving medicine, Dr. Van Hoesen has a special interest and personal experience in high-altitude medicine and wilderness medicine.

As a professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine, she instructs medical students, residents and fellows in emergency medicine, diving medicine and wilderness medicine. Dr. Van Hoesen is co-director of the Wilderness Medicine Fellowship at UC San Diego School of Medicine. She has co-authored numerous research papers, book chapters and abstracts and frequently speaks to divers, instructors, scientific diving officers and physicians about all aspects of diving medicine and safety.

Dr. Van Hoesen completed a residency in emergency medicine at UC San Diego School of Medicine and earned her medical degree from Duke University School of Medicine. She is board-certified in emergency medicine and undersea and hyperbaric medicine.

Since 2000, Dr. Van Hoesen has been a member of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography Diving Control Board. She has served on the board of directors for Divers Alert Network (DAN) and is currently an emergency on-call physician for DAN.

Dr. Van Hoesen has also served on Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society committees and held leadership positions at the local and national level. Dr. Van Hoesen has been a National Association of Underwater Instructors (NAUI) diving instructor for more than 30 years and has dove on all seven continents.

Her honors include the 2014 DAN/Rolex Diver of the Year Award and being an inaugural member of the Women Divers Hall of Fame.

She loves opening the underwater world to the public and teaching appreciation and awareness of the underwater environment.

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Leo Tanaka is a former Air Force senior flight surgeon, dive medical officer, and pararescue medical director.  His interests are in immersion pulmonary edema and special operations dive medicine, with presentations given at the Special Operations Medical Scientific Assembly and posters discussed at the UHMS annual conference.  He is also well-versed in medical standards, helping create the first special warfare medical standards for the United States Air Force (USAF). He looks to build further evidence for the UHM field, to include further developments to a hyperbaric registry and to advance acceptance of further indications for HBOT.

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Marc Robins, DO, MPH, FUHM is the Senior Medical Director for the Wound & Hyperbaric Shared Services for the Intermountain Healthcare System in Utah. He is the current President of the UHMS and has served as Co-Chair for the Quality Utilization, Authorization and Reimbursement Committee and on the Education Committee for the UHMS.  He is an Associate Fellow of the Aerospace Medical Association (AsMA) and has served on the Science and Research committee AsMA since 2001-20. He is boarded in Hyperbaric Medicine, Aerospace and Occupational Medicine and Family Practice and retired as a Colonel from the USAF after a 20-year career in Aerospace Medicine.

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Peter Lindholm, MD, PhD is Professor in Residence, Gurnee Endowed Chair of Hyperbaric and Diving Medicine Research, Department of Emergency Medicine, University of California San Diego. He is a radiologist (licensed in Sweden), and associate professor in physiology and radiology from the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. He has also served as director of thoracic radiology at the Karolinska University Hospital. His research interest is in the field of diving and hyperbaric medicine with focus on the pathophysiology of breath-hold diving. He has published studies on hypoxia and loss of consciousness as well as the pulmonary effects of lungsqueeze. He has described the physiology of how glossopharyngeal breathing extends the amount of gas in the lungs beyond total lung capacity, including the first case series suggesting cerebral arterial gas embolism from glossopharyngeal insufflation (lungpacking). He published the first study suggesting “tracheal squeeze” as an alternative to pulmonary edema in divers bleeding after deep dives. He has showed that exercise and fasting prior to diving increases the risk of loss of consciousness similar to hyperventilation. He has also developed a new method to use magnetic resonance imaging to diagnose pulmonary embolism. Current focus is on immersion pulmonary edema and lungsqueeze, as well as new methods to measure hyperbaric oxygen therapy. He also enjoys exercise and his saltwater aquarium.