In addition to her leadership of University M.D.-Ph.D. Educators, Dr. Gunzburger is Senior Associate Editor for Intercom, the quarterly publication of the Society of Academic CME (Medical Schools' Deans of Continuing Medical Education). She is Senior Medical Education Advisor for Christ Hospital-Hope Children's Hospital, Oak Lawn, Illinois. And she serves as Leadership Officer for Medical Schools Continuing Medical Education Deans for the United States and Canada. She is actively managing a $ 500,000 Women's Health grant and a $ 750,000 scientific evidence based grant.

Dr. Gunzburger has also served as a Professor and Associate Dean for Allegheny University of Health Sciences, MCP, Hahnemann School of Medicine in Philadelphia, PA, responsible for Evaluation and Assessment, CME, 3rd Year Clerkships, Education, Research and Development. She has held a number of educational leadership positions at large medical schools, including the Stritch School of Medicine at Loyola University, Associate Dean of Educational Research and Development and Continuing Medical Education, Professor and Associate Dean of Curriculum at the Chicago Medical School, and at the Pritzker School of Medicine at the University of Chicago-totaling 28 years in the medical education field. She serves as reviewer for Academic Medicine, Medical Teacher, Continuing Medical Education for the Health Professions, and the British Medical Education Journal. She is author and/or editor of many dozen articles, papers, texts and lectures on a variety of medical educational topics and is considered one of the country's foremost experts on the subject.

Of exceptional value to the CME business are Dr. Gunzburger's professional affiliations and committee memberships. She currently serves as the Dean's Leadership Curriculum Chair for the Society of Continuing Education where she has also served as Mentor for Outcome Measurement. Other key affiliations included American College of Physicians, the American College of Ob-Gyn's, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Illinois Alliance for Continuing Medical Education, and the American Education Research Association. She is a member of the American Medical Association Task Force on Practice Parameters and CME subcommittee, has served as a member of the National Board of Medical Examiners Ad Hoc Scoring Research Committee for the Computer-Based Examination, an Editorial Reviewer for Academic Medicine (published by the Association of American Medical Colleges), a Continuing Medical Education Accreditation Surveyor for the Illinois State Medical Society, ACCME, and a Member and Reviewer for the Association of American Medical Colleges Research in Medical Education. In addition, she has close affiliation with all national primary care physician medical societies, most national specialty care and ancillary care medical societies. This is only a partial list of professional affiliations.

The value of these affiliations is the resulting access to virtually all levels and niches of the medical education market. University M.D. - Ph.D. Educators is successful in facilitating these professional memberships as an invitee to sponsor markets. Consequently, there is great demand for the services of University M.D.-Ph.D. Educators. This results in very high returns of investments, endorsements and product support.

Please contact Dr. Gunzburger at gunzburger@umpeducators.com

John Michael has been UMPE's administrator since its formation in 1977. He is an expert in its history, partners, administration and processes. John can be reached at michael@umpeducators.com.
 

Holly Atkinson, M.D.

Dr. Atkinson has over 20 years experience in medical information and education, including both continuing medical education and consumer education.  As Senior Vice President of Medical Affairs for University MD-PhD Educators, she is responsible for corporate quality assurance and medical liaison.

Charles RB Beckmann, MD, MHPE, FACOG

Connie Barillas

Connie brings 24 years of professional experience to UMPE, having worked in the telecommunications field in various capacities from 1981 through 2001 and served in the United States Air Force from 1973 through 1977.

During early 2001, just before accepting an early retirement offer, Connie served as Market Manager for several Latin American accounts. Within this role, she directly supported sales to Venezuelan and Nicaraguan customers, insuring cohesive operation of team members in the U.S, Venezuela and Nicaragua. For the 1.5 years prior, she worked as a Global Product Marketer, co-authoring offers for European and Latin American sales conferences with Product and Program Managers. She tailored solutions for sales teams in Asia-Pacific and Latin America and authored and delivered marketing and technical product overviews to visiting European customers who used her materials to sell their executives on the product merits. From 1995 - 1999, Connie supported Lucent's largest customer as a Product Marketer and Customer Business Manager, leading a development and marketing team to assess the value of new products and tracking, coordinating and reporting outcomes. She prepared and presented market research for new technology markets and co-led a Competitive Intelligence (CI) team, arranging monthly CI forums, real-time CI news and researching and speaking on competitors. She analyzed, priced and supported multimillion-dollar offers for reuse equipment, hardware redesign, equipment upgrades, and life-stock needs. She also authored sections and supported negotiations of customer contracts for software releases, data management tools, end-of-life spare equipment and factory rescaling.

From 1981 - 1995, Connie worked as a System Integration and Performance Verification tester, planner and coordinator. In this, she planned, tracked, coordinated, documented and reported software release testing. For seven of these years, Connie worked in Software Design and Development, designing and developing software programs and features for the company's largest backbone switch.

In her early adulthood, Connie served in the USAF in ground-to-air radio operations at locations in the southern US, California and Germany.

Over a 20 year period, Connie completed a large number of continuing education courses, both technical and business, including two suitcased "Mini-MBA" programs (finance and marketing) from the Wharton School of Business. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science (Magna Cum Laude) from North Central University in Naperville, IL as well as most of a Masters in Business Administration from Illinois Benedictine University in Lisle, IL. She started with an Associates in Applied Science in Electronics Technology from Joliet Junior College, in Joliet, IL, also Magna Cum Laude. She continues to take classes at local universities and colleges.

Connie is married to Jose' Barillas, a Computer Scientist. She has 4 children: Neil, born 1977; Kimberly, born 1984; Alexandra, born 1997 and Cristian, born 1998 and adopted from Guatemala in 2000.

You can contact Connie at barillas@umpeducators.com.

Shelly Halfman

Shelly joins the team bringing with her ten years of teaching experience. Shelly received her B.A. from Methodist College in Fayetteville, N.C. Her teaching experience has provided her the opportunity to meet many wonderful people and appreciate new ideas. The skills she brings of communication, organization and her leadership and creativity skills will be a asset to the team.

Karen Norton

Karen has worked as a Customer Safety Representative. She has spent many years working with the public and also in a supervisory capacity. She brings to the team a her organizational skills and computer abilities.  Karen is well versed in decision making and efficiency. Karen has a B.S. from Western Illinois University in Macomb.

Debbie Vargo

Debbie has worked in administrative leadership in medical offices over several years and assists Dr. Gunzburger directly. She's energetic, enthusiastic and excellent! Debbie's a smiler! You can reach Debbie at vargo@umpeducators.com.

Katie brings youth and vibrancy to UMPE, reminding us to laugh and keep our work fun. A High School Senior and Honor Student, Katie assists with office tasks during some of her hours away from school. Her work ethics with UMPE leave us all confident in the bright future ahead for this young go-getter. She's a delight to be around and an asset to our company. She supports Connie and can be reached at katie@umpeducators.com.