New faculty spotlight: Elena Strunk, M.D.

Elena Strunk, M.D., is a new faculty member at UNMC.

• Name: Elena Strunk, M.D.
• Hometown: Omaha
• Title and department at UNMC: Assistant professor, UNMC Department of Emergency Medicine; staff physician, Nebraska Medicine Department of Emergency Medicine

Professional Interests:

• Point-of-care ultrasound
• Physician wellness
• Humanities in medicine
• Gender disparities in medicine
• Resident education

How I fell in love with emergency medicine and point of care ultrasound:

There are countless cases I can recall of point-of-care ultrasound expediting care and decreasing time to diagnosis in the emergency department. A case that stands out to me is when I was an intern doing a rotation in Chicago at a hospital without a trauma surgeon. A patient arrived with a stab wound outside the cardiac box. I was working with the ultrasound fellow and we did a bedside echo. Within less than five minutes, we identified a pericardial effusion and performed an ultrasound-guided pericardiocentesis. The patient was stabilized, transferred to a trauma facility, and lived. After this case, I began using ultrasound prolifically and years later I am still in awe of its utility in my daily clinical practice.

Education:

• M.D., Creighton University School of Medicine, Omaha, NE
• Residency, emergency medicine, Cook County Hospital, Chicago
• Fellowship, emergency ultrasound, George Washington University Hospital, Washington, D.C.

Memberships:

• American College of Emergency Physicians
• Emergency Medicine Residency Association
• American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine

Three things people may not know about me:

• I was once a competitive figure skater.
• I met Lady Gaga during medical school at a yoga studio in Omaha.
• My favorite hobbies are hiking, skiing, yoga, walking, eating delicious food, and traveling the world.