Course Director

Andjela Drincic, MD, FACP, is a professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. She trained as an endocrinologist at Northwestern University and later worked as a medical director and fellowship program director at Creighton University. Subsequently, she took on the role of medical director of the Diabetes and Endocrinology Center at University of Nebraska Medical Center, as well as the medical director for glycemic quality and safety for Nebraska Medicine.

She plays a critical role in delivering direct patient care and developing programs to create efficient systems for improving care for patients with diabetes in both inpatient and outpatient settings. Her work focuses on implementing innovative inpatient diabetes care models and evaluating clinical decision support systems to enhance the safety of glycemic control for hospitalized patients with hyperglycemia and diabetes.

On a national level, she is an active member of PRIDE (Planning Research in Inpatient Diabetes) group, Diabetes Research Hub (a research initiative organized by the Diabetes Technology Society), and a lecturer for national and international organizations such as the American Diabetes Association, Diabetes Technology Society, and Endocrine Society. She played a key role in clinical trials examining the links between diabetes, brain function, driving, and hypoglycemia.

Additionally, she authored numerous publications in the field of quality and safety related to inpatient diabetes care. As a clinician scientist, she penned multiple position statements outlining crucial standards of care for hospitalized patients with diabetes. This includes authoritative works such as the Endocrine Society Inpatient Hyperglycemia Guidelines and Diabetes Technology Society recommendations for inpatient use of diabetes technology. Currently, she is an expert for the National Healthcare Safety Network and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, spearheading national initiatives to enhance inpatient diabetes care.

Archana R. Sadhu, MD, FACE, is an associate professor of clinical medicine at Houston Methodist Academic and Research Institute, assistant professor of clinical medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College, and adjunct assistant professor at Texas A&M Health Sciences. Her medical career began with a doctor of medicine from the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where she graduated with Alpha Omega Alpha honors. She completed her internal medicine residency as well as fellowship in endocrinology, diabetes, and hypertension at UCLA and continued on as clinical faculty there. In 2010, she was recruited to Houston Methodist where she holds the position of director of the System Diabetes Program and leads this large hospital system on evidence-based clinical practices, clinical research, and education to ensure the comprehensive, high-quality, and cost-efficient care of people with diabetes. Additionally, Dr. Sadhu has unique expertise in a complex group of patients who undergo organ transplantation—in particular, pancreas transplantation—and serves as the medical director of Pancreas Transplantation and director of Transplant Endocrinology at the JC Walter Transplant Center at Houston Methodist Hospital.

Dr. Sadhu is passionate about educating all healthcare professionals that impact the care of individuals with diabetes and has been an invited lecturer at national and international conferences. Her work has been published in highly regarded peer-reviewed journals in endocrinology, and she is a content expert for the public media. She also has received recognition by her peers for her expertise and has been awarded the Alan J. Garber Diabetes Educational Lectureship for the Prevention and Management of the Complications of Diabetes by the American Association of Clinical Endocrinology.

Athena Philis-Tsimikas, MD, a board-certified endocrinologist, is the corporate vice president of the Scripps Whittier Diabetes Institute at Scripps Health and the director of community engagement for the Clinical Translational Science Award, housed at Scripps Research Translational Institute in San Diego, California (1UL1 TR002550-03, Topol PI). With over 25 years of experience, she has served as a member of the Scripps Clinic Medical Group in the Division of Endocrinology and Diabetes and leads the Diabetes Care Line for Scripps Health, which creates programs, conducts research, and delivers diabetes services across 5 Scripps hospitals, 25 outpatient facilities, and the community. She is a leader of the innovative Project Dulce and Dulce Digital program, which cares for underserved populations with diabetes. Dr. Philis-Tsimikas and Scripps Whittier Diabetes Institute are actively promoting participation of health centers in community-based clinical research with a focus on integrating digital technologies to improve diabetes care in the ambulatory and hospital setting.

Dr. Philis-Tsimikas enjoys traveling, biking, and harvesting olives to make extra virgin olive oil in Greece.