Stories

Expert guidance

February 11, 2022

A new Medical Advisory Team to help guide our school’s decision making

Throughout the pandemic, Aspen Country Day School has focused on two goals: in-person learning and the health and safety of our community. Achieving those goals required some difficult, but mostly straightforward, judgment calls.

As the situation slowly shifts from “pandemic to endemic,” decision-making becomes less clear. When is it safe to ease off on some of the layers of protection — masks, quarantines, or cohorting, for example — that have helped keep school safe, healthy, and open? We are doing our best to monitor all these topics and make the decisions that are best for children, teachers, and the broader community.

To assist us in this complex landscape, we have convened a volunteer Medical Advisory Team. The administration and Board of Trustees will turn to this group for guidance, medically relevant information, and data-driven recommendations on policies and protocols. We’re pleased to introduce the following members, chosen for their medical expertise, knowledge of state and regional conditions, and goodwill for our school:

Chair: B. Lee Schumacher

Vice Chair of the Aspen Valley Hospital Board of Directors, Lee served multiple terms as president of the Board of Trustees of Aspen Country Day School and is currently an honorary trustee. He is an attorney with a law firm that has represented physicians and physician groups for more than 25 years; he earned his law degrees (J.D. and LL.M., taxation) at the University of Denver College of Law. Lee is a parent of six Country Day alumni and grandparent of a current student.

Madeleine (Simonet) McDowell, MD, FAAP

Madeleine is a strategic advisor and health care industry expert in market strategy, quality and analytics, and is currently senior principal of quality and data analytics at Vizient and chief medical officer, Sg2. Working with many nationally recognized children’s hospitals, she provides thought leadership to the Sg2’s women’s health and pediatrics intelligence teams. Board certified in pediatrics, Madeleine spent more than 10 years in clinical practice, including serving as a hospitalist at Boston Children’s Hospital and a faculty member of Harvard Medical School. She was a past clinical advisor for the Children’s Hospital Association and a keynote speaker at its annual meetings. Madeleine received an MD from the University of Connecticut School of Medicine and completed her internship and residency in pediatrics at Yale-New Haven Hospital. She is a parent of an ACDS graduate and a current student.

Dave Ressler

Chief Executive Officer of Aspen Valley Hospital, Dave has more than 35 years of health care experience, with 25 of those years as a hospital administrator. He was Aspen Valley Hospital’s CEO from 2004-2013, returning to the position in the fall of 2016. He has served as chief strategy officer and chief operating officer at Tucson Medical Center, a 600-bed tertiary hospital, and was executive director of a newly-formed management company, the Community Care Alliance (CCA), that formed two Accountable Care Organizations serving seniors in 14 rural communities in western Colorado and Washington State.

Catherine Bernard, MD

Chief of Staff at Aspen Valley Hospital, Catherine began practicing emergency medicine at Aspen Valley Hospital in 2002 after earning her medical degree from the University of Texas Health Sciences Center at San Antonio in 1999 and completing her residency in emergency medicine in 2002 from Christiana Care Health Services in Newark, Delaware. She has been active with the hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic in the areas of information and communications, supply chain management, and vaccination strategy and implementation. She is the parent of two sons.

Kimberly Levin, MD, MPH

In her role as Pitkin County Medical Officer, Dr. Levin is a key policy advisor for the Pitkin County Board of Health. She has practiced Emergency Medicine at Aspen Valley Hospital since 2006 and also works as a staff physician at the Snowmass Clinic. Dr. Levin completed her residency at Stanford University in the field of emergency medicine and is board-certified by the American Board of Emergency Medicine. With an undergraduate degree in biology from Harvard University, she earned a masters degree in public health and a medical degree from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

From Aspen Country Day School, working with the Medical Advisory Team

Clare Evert-Shane, Chair, Board of Trustees Maggie Gloor, School Nurse Grace Nims, Director of Operations Josh Wolman, Head of School