Emergency Medicine Leadership

Dr. Dick Kuo is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University and completed his medical training at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical School. After a surgical internship at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, Texas, he completed his emergency medicine residency at the University of Maryland where he stayed on as faculty for 15 years. At the University of Maryland he served as medical director for the Department of Emergency Medicine and before departing for Baylor College of Medicine he was the co-chair for Emergency Medicine Faculty Development. He is currently a member of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine’s Faculty Development Committee and an oral board examiner for the American Board of Emergency Medicine. His research Interests include cardiovascular disorders, such as ACS, heart failure and stroke, clinical effectiveness and testing in the emergency department and competency in education.

Dr. Tyson Pillow completed medical school at Baylor College of Medicine in 2006 and his residency training at the University of Chicago in 2009. He joined the Baylor faculty in 2009 and helped build the emergency medicine program. He completed his Masters of Education with focus on health professions education at the University of Houston in 2011. Before becoming the residency program director, Dr. Pillow served as the clerkship director, assistant program director, and then associate program director. He also currently serves as the medical director for the simulation and standardized patient program in the Office of Undergraduate Medical Education at Baylor. Dr. Pillow's interests include presentation design, feedback, social media, and technology in education. Since returning to Baylor, Dr. Pillow has won numerous teaching awards including the Council of Residency Directors in EM National Teaching Faculty Award in 2012.

Dr. Sarah Bezek is a graduate of the Texas Teach University Health Sciences in Lubbock, Texas. She completed her residency training at Yale New Haven Hospital in New Haven, Connecticut. Prior to her career in Emergency Medicine, Dr. Bezek was a high school teacher and coach at Edcouch-Elsa ISD in South Texas for four years.  Prior to leading the departments educational efforts, she held various educational leadership roles such as the EM Clerkship Director, Director of EM electives, Associate Program Director and former course director of Critical Thinking and Problem Solving at the school of medicine.  She has experience in innovative curricular design, active learning modalities such as TBL/PBL and faculty development.  She has interest areas in global health, immigrant medicine, team collaboration, metacognition and stamping out learner mistreatment. She enjoys spending time outdoors, exploring the world with her husband, two kids and their energetic dog.

Dr. Zubaid Rafique serves as the Vice Chair of Research and an Associate Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. He received his medical degree from the University of Minnesota Medical School and completed his residency training in emergency medicine at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital before his faculty appointment at Baylor in 2010. Dr. Rafique's primary research focus is on the acute care management of hyperkalemia and its electrocardiographic manifestations. He also works on novel biomarkers and medical devices to improve diagnostic accuracy and patient care in the acute setting. He has served as a principal investigator for national clinical trials and has conducted studies with both industry and NIH funding. His scholarly work includes nearly 100 peer-reviewed publications and numerous presentations at national and international scientific meetings. Dr. Rafique also serves as the Editor for the Emergency Medicine section of the Annals of Medicine.

Dr. Sanchez received his Doctor of Medicine from Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. He earned his Master's of Public Health from Columbia University and completed his Emergency Medicine residency training at Jacobi Medical Center/Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He comes to Baylor after 25 years at Harvard Medical School, where he was a Professor of Emergency Medicine and spent time at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center from 2001 to 2020 and at Brigham and Women’s Hospital from 2020 to 2026. At Beth Israel, he served as Vice Chair of Operations for many years, and he was the Chief of Emergency Medicine for the Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital for five years. He is a nationally recognized expert in the field of Emergency Medicine Operations and has lectured both nationally and internationally. Areas of research focus include operational improvement, patient flow and throughput optimization, queuing theory and schedule optimization. His clinical experience spans a large variety of Emergency Departments, both in terms of size and resources. His research innovations have been implemented in academic and non-academic settings.