After completing a four year anesthesiology residency at the University of Virginia, she completed a critical care medicine fellowship at Columbia University Medical Center in New York, NY. She worked as an anesthesiologist and cardiothoracic intensivist for several years at Mount Sinai Medical Center and Columbia University Medical Centers, both in New York, NY. Her research interests include preoperative assessment of cardiothoracic surgery patients, lung ischemia reperfusion injury, postoperative delirium and echocardiography in the ICU. She has numerous publications with focus on critical care and cardiothoracic surgery. She also serves as an ad hoc reviewer for many journals.