Surgical Residency for Physician Assistants Faculty

Julie A. Freischlag, M.D.
The William Stewart Halsted Professor; Chair, Department of Surgery; Surgeon-in-Chief, The Johns Hopkins Hospital

Dr. G. Melville Williams, M.D. is the medical director for the Physician Assistant Residency Program. He began his academic career as an undergraduate at Oberlin College and then went on to attend Harvard Medical School in Boston in 1957. He did his surgical residency at the Massachusetts General Hospital, finishing in 1964. Dr. Williams spent a year learning immunology as a special fellow of the NIH in Australia. Upon his return to the states, he joined the group pioneering renal transplantation at the Medical College of Virginia and took a position as Director of Surgical Research. In 1969 he came to Johns Hopkins as the Chief of Transplant Surgery, a position that he held until 1995. Dr. Williams also served as Chief of Vascular Surgery in 1973 through 2002. Dr. Williams now focuses on research related to the ischemia-reprofusion injury. He truly enjoys mentoring surgical residents, young faculty members, and espeically the Physician Assistant Residents.

G Melville Williams, M.D.  Bertiam M Bernheim Professor; The Johns Hopkins Hosptial

Deborah Baker is the Director of Nursing for the Department of Surgery and the director emeritus of the Post-Graduate Surgical Residency for Physician Assistants.

Lisa Rotellini-Coltvet, MA, MMS, PA-C is Program Director of the Physician Assistant Surgical Residency and is a Physician Assistant at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in the Department of Surgery. Ms. Rotellini obtained her undergraduate degree in Nutritional Sciences, Dietetics, with a minor in Chemistry from the University of Arizona in 1998. In 2003, she earned a Master of Arts in Gerontology from the University of Northern Colorado, and received her Master of Medical Science from Midwestern University Physician Assistant Program- Glendale in 2004.  Following her PA program, Lisa was a member of the inaugural JHH Postgraduate Surgical Residency for Physician Assistants in 2005. Ms. Rotellini has worked for Johns Hopkins Medicine in Plastic Surgery and most recently, Vascular Surgery, as Physician Assistant to the Chair of Surgery, Dr. Julie Freischlag. She has been in a leadership position with the PA Program since 2006, initially as Co-director and currently as Director of the program. She is adjunct faculty to the PA program at Midwestern University in Arizona, and is President-Elect of the APPAP (Association of Postgraduate Physician Assistant Programs).

Martha Kennedy has been Education Coordinator for the Post-graduate Surgical PA Residency program since 2006. She is a Nurse Practitioner in Surgical Intensive Care at JHH, where she cares for acute and critically ill surgical patients. Martha also serves as the Co-Director for the Post-graduate Critical Care Physician Assistant Residency Program.

Martha worked in Medical Oncology for over 18 years before joining the Department of Surgery as a Nurse Practitioner in 2002. She obtained her Bachelors in Nursing from Georgetown University in 1984, as well as a Masters in Nursing (1996) and Ph.D in Nursing (2000) from University of Maryland, Baltimore. Her research interests have been in the use of pulmonary physiologic parameters for prediction of time on ventilators, sepsis management in the ICU, the role and education of nurse practitioners and physician assistants in surgical and critical care, and measures of ICU workload and cognitive burden.

Deborah Baker, MSN, RN, CRNP

Lisa Rotellini-Coltvet, MA, MMS, PA-C