Meet Our Doctors

Dr. Lee received his B.A. from University of California Los Angeles and his M.D. from Harvard Medical School. He subsequently trained in internal medicine and then pulmonary critical care medicine, both at Massachusetts General Hospital. He also trained in Clinical Effectiveness and Evidence Based Health Care at the Harvard School of Public Health and Oxford University, respectively.

Throughout his unique career, Dr. Lee has worked tirelessly as a clinician-educator and has made numerous contributions to the education and training of medical students, residents, and fellows both in the U.S. and in Sub Saharan Africa. Early in his career, he served in various leadership roles at Medstar Washington Hospital Center including as the Director of the Medical Intensive Care Unit, Director of the Pulmonary Critical Care and Critical Care Fellowship Programs, and Associate Professor of Medicine at Georgetown University. He developed several innovative educational initiatives such as co-founding of the DC-Baltimore Critical Care Education Consortium and creation of the year-long Fundamentals of Mechanical Ventilation Preceptorial Course for fellows.

Dr. Lee has also championed medical educational efforts globally, especially in resource-limited countries. From 2010 to 2016, he worked at Kijabe Hospital, helping to develop a context-appropriate approach to critical care in resource-limited settings and he co-founded the Emergency Critical Care Clinical Officer Program (ECCCO), the first of its kind in Sub Saharan Africa. He is an author and co-editor of the 5th edition of the Handbook of Medicine – A Manual for Practitioners in Low Resource Settings. He teaches annually and currently serves as the Academic Dean of the International Continuing Medical Education Conference.

Upon his return to the US in 2016, Dr. Lee served as a Professor of Medicine at University of Pittsburgh, where he was a director of several medical student courses including the second-year pulmonary physiology course, the fourth-year ICU Clerkship, and the Scientific Literacy & Numeracy elective. He also created the Medical Education Laboratory Think Tank in the Division of Pulmonary Allergy and Critical Care Medicine to encourage and mentor young medical educators at University of Pittsburgh.

Dr. Lee was recruited to the NIH in 2020 and he is excited to focus his efforts on his areas of passion, medical education and global health. He is continuing to study how physicians develop (and potentially lose) mastery of medical knowledge and skills, especially for complex concepts such as mechanical ventilation and scientific numeracy. He also serves as an Associate Editor for ATS Scholar, an education-research focused journal for the American Thoracic Society. Through the Global Critical Care Consortium, he is currently working to develop a collaboration among academic medical centers in the US to support critical care practice, training and research in low-middle income countries.

• J. H. Gaskin Excellence in Teaching Award, Medstar Washington Hospital Center - Internal Medicine Residency, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005
• Merit in Authorship Award, American College of Occupational & Environmental Medicine, 2004
• James A. Curtin Outstanding Clinical Educator, Medstar Washington Hospital Center - Internal Medicine Residency, 2007, 2010, 2014
• Master Teacher Award, National Institute of Health, Department of Critical Care Medicine, 2009
• Sol Katz Teaching Award, American College of Physicians, DC Chapter, 2011
• Educator of the Year, Christian Medical Association, 2018
• John W. Kreit Outstanding Educator Award, Pulmonary Allergy Critical Care Medicine, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, 2018
• Outstanding Subspecialty Teaching Attending Award, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, 2019