Who We Are
SOPE Subcommittees

SOPE Pediatric Echocardiography Advocacy and Sonographer Education Subcommittee
(PEASE)
Mission
Utilize the diverse talents and experiences of pediatric echo faculty and sonographers to advocate for solutions to issues unique to pediatric sonography.
Recruit, Train, Improve, Retain
Committee Members
Curt Degroff
Pierre Wong
Allyson Doucet
Michelle Skrobot
Joan Lipinski
Danielle Labadie
Riley Bigelow
Luciana Young
Lisa Elliott
Michael DiMaria
Joey Goulding,
Sara Shreve
Co-Chair Garick Hill
Co-Chair Bernadette Richards
SOPE Education Subcommittee
In 2019 SOPE provided its first webinar in conjunction with the Intersocietal Accreditation Commission (IAC). This inaugural webinar by Bernadette Richards, FASE, RDCS, Technical Director, Echo Lab at Nationwide Children’s Hospital was titled “Shoptalk: Imaging the ACHD patient’. There were over 1000 attendees with very positive feedback including request for more congenital webinars!
Our second very successful live webinar took place on May 29, 2020. Mishella Perez BS, RDMS, RDCS, sonographer educator, Scripps Health San Diego presented “Fetal Echocardiography: Protocol and Technique.” This webinar followed by a Q&A session included AIUM practice parameters for the performance of fetal echocardiography and discussed how to optimize techniques to improve screening for congenital heart disease.
The society plans to continue these CME opportunities in coordination with IAC going forward. Please let us know which topics you would enjoy most by Seda Tierney or Joan Lipinski.
Subcommittee Co-Chairs
Co-Chair: Seda Tierney, MD, FAAP, FASE, FACC, FAHA Co-Chair: Joan Lipinski, MHS, RDCS
Subcommittee Members
Carolyn Wilhelm, MD
Shaji Menon, MD
Shubhika Srivastava, MD
Bernadette Richards, RDCS
Jenn Co-Vu


SOPE Career and Development Subcommittee
The Early Career Development subcommittee seeks to provide a range of resources for junior physicians and sonographers to help launch their careers in echocardiography. Our initial venture will pair mentors and mentees with similar interests/goals together to allow individualized guidance.
Interested individuals can sign up on our website, beginning at the time of our Virtual Symposium on August 6, 2020. Future plans include webinars with expert panels on a range of topics, including job search, CV composition, and building a research career in imaging.
Please contact Andrew Rodenbarger, MD with any ideas you have for the Early Career Development subcommittee.
Subcommittee Members
Co-Chairs:
Andrew Rodenbarger, Riley Children’s Hospital
Ruchira Garg, Cedars Sinai
Katie Jo Stauffer, Stanford
Members:
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Mary Donofrio, Children’s National
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Julie Glickstein, Columbia
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Mike DiLorenzo, Columbia
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Tyler Fick, Children’s Mercy Kansas City
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Anitha Parthiban, Texas Children’s Hospital
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Nadine Choueiter, Children’s Hospital at Montefiore
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Simon Lee, Nationwide Children’s Hospital
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Nicole Cresalia, UCSF
SOPE Echo Lab Collaborative Subcommittee
The Pediatric Echo Lab Collaborative launched and was announced at the annual SOPE meeting in 2019. The goal is to be a learning collaborative using echocardiography to improve the quality and value of echocardiography and the outcome of children with congenital and acquired heart disease. As such, we have launched our first project entitled “Reducing Discrepancies between Preoperative Echo and Intraoperative findings”. This quality improvement project will determine the type of discrepancies made on preoperative echocardiography compared to intraoperative findings.
Ultimately, the goal is to minimize these discrepancies. This effort has been led by Shobha Natarajan and Meryl Cohen. A pilot group of institutions will start collecting prospective data this summer and then it will be opened to the entire SOPE community at large to participate.
For more information on how your center can participate in the Pediatric Echo Lab Collaborative, please email: natarajans@email.chop.edu or cohenm@email.chop.edu. We encourage submissions of ideas for projects. Pediatric sonographers are encouraged to submit ideas directly related to their work environment.
Project Lead
Shobha Natarajan (CHOP)
Subcommittee Members
Aarti Bhat, Pei-Ne Jone, Meryl Cohen


SOPE Communications
Subcommittee
The Communications Subcommittee plans to distribute newsletters quarterly. We will also be working on increasing SOPE’s social media presence, as well as helping Tara Foy at FirstPoint management to revise our website. Please reach out to Beth Printz at bprintz@rchsd.org with any suggestions you may have!
Subcommittee Members
Co-chair: Beth Printz, MD
Co-chair:
Jenn Co-Vu
Sujatha Buddhe
Jeffery Dayton
Melissa Wasserman
Janet Barnes