Faculty

Ho-Choong Chang, MD, is the Chief of Pediatrics of Community Health Center, Inc. In this role, Dr. Chang oversees the delivery of high quality, evidence-based health care to our pediatric population. Dr. Chang also serves as the On Site Medical Director of Connecticut Pediatrics at CHC in Hartford as well as a clinical preceptor in our pediatric APRN residency program. Dr. Chang earned his undergraduate degree in psychobiology at Yale College. Prior to entering medical school, Dr. Chang served in the first Teach For America corps and taught science to eight graders in Brooklyn, NY, where he was awarded the school’s Teacher of the Year Award in his first year. He received his medical degree from The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and completed his pediatrics residency at the University of Washington, Seattle Children’s Hospital. With over two decades of experience, Dr. Chang has cared for children in a number of roles including pediatric hospitalist, urgent care physician, and primary care provider. He was voted Philadelphia Magazine’s Top Doctors in Pediatrics in 2018 and 2019. He was also voted Inside New Jersey Magazine’s, Top Doctors for Children’s Health in 2015 to 2018.

R. Timothy Kearney, PhD, earned his BA with a combined major in Psychology and Spanish Literature at Yale University and pursued graduate work at Fuller Theological Seminary where he earned his MA (Theology) from the Graduate School of Theology and his PhD (Clinical Psychology) from the Graduate School of Psychology. He has also completed the post graduate Primary Care Behavioral Health training program at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester. He is a licensed psychologist in Connecticut. He joined the Community Health Center behavioral health staff in 1998. He is the author of Caring for Sexually Abused Children: A Handbook for Families and Churches (Intervarsity Press, 2001). In addition to administrative and clinical leadership of the Behavioral Health programs at CHC, Dr. Kearney supervises and trains postdoctoral psychology residents, co-leads psychotherapy groups with students and younger staff to train them in the provision of child group therapy, and provides direct client care with the clinical focus of providing care to children and adolescents and their families, especially those impacted by medical illness, trauma, and abuse.

Deirdre Brannin, RN, FNP-BC, completed her undergraduate BSN and post-graduate Family Nurse Practitioner Certificate at Boston College. Her primary role is a school-based nurse practitioner at Community Health Center, Inc. working in both an elementary school and in a high school. She also maintains a practice serving adult and elderly patients. She is currently progressing toward certification in Functional Medicine (FM). Briefly, FM is an approach to medicine and wellness that addresses the underlying causes of disease using a systems-oriented, individualized approach that engages the patient and the provider in a therapeutic partnership. FM, which has a strong lifestyle component, seeks to understand what factors are affecting health or causing disease rather than just treating symptoms.

Robert Dudley, MD, MEd, FAAP, joined the Community Health Center of New Britain, CT as a National Public Health Scholar in the summer of 1996 after completing his residency at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. He has been involved in the New Britain community as the school district’s medical advisor for the past twenty five years. He has held multiple rolls at the state and national level with the American Academy of Pediatrics, currently as the Connecticut Chapter’s Immediate Past President and as the Chair of the Community Access to Child Health (CATCH) grant program. He is a member of the national and state AAP School Health Committees. Dr. Dudley has championed quality improvement initiatives in the areas of substance abuse screening, developmental screening, depression screening, immunizations, asthma, and STD screening. He has been actively involved in pediatric obesity and community based participatory research projects for the past thirteen years, with presentations of Healthy Tomorrows, RWJF Salud America, and Invest Health grant program data at the AAP Future of Pediatrics, Weight of the Nation, and NICHQ conferences, where he was honored with NICHQ’s 2010 Outstanding Faculty Achievement Award. He serves as the medical advisor for Klingberg Family Center’s Webster House, which serves medically and behaviorally complex teens from across Connecticut. He is an assistant clinical professor at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine.

Stacy Hankey, DSW, LCSW, earned her BSW at Western New England University and her MSW from Springfield College. She is also a doctoral candidate pursuing her DSW from Capella University. She is a licensed clinical social worker in the state of Connecticut. She joined the Community Health Center’s School Based Heath Center staff in 2010 as a behavioral health clinician in an elementary school and has been one of the Regional Directors of School Based Behavioral Health since 2018. Ms. Hankey’s clinical work focuses on using play therapy and mindfulness intervention with children, adolescents, and families in variety of settings including schools, hospitals, residential facilities, and juvenile detention centers.

Weitzman Institute Disclosure Statement

It is the policy of the Weitzman Institute to ensure that Continuing Education (CE) activities are independent and free of commercial bias. To ensure educational content is objective, balanced, and guarantee content presented is in the best interest of its learners' and the public, the Weitzman Institute requires that everyone in a position to control educational content disclose all financial relationships with ineligible companies within the prior 24 months. An ineligible company is one whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients. Examples can be found at accme.org.

Faculty participating in a Weitzman Institute-sponsored activity must disclose to the planning committee and audience all financial or other relationship(s) with ineligible companies.

Faculty Disclosures

No faculty disclosed a relevant financial relationship for this program.