Board of Trustees and Corporate Officers

As Dean for Students, Dr. Oriol works with the Office of Student Affairs, which collaborates with the Harvard Medical School academic societies on issues related to the individual and professional growth and development of HMS students, including issues of career path, specialty choice and questions about leaves of absence. Dr. Oriol oversees the activities of the advising resource coordinator, the dormitory resident counselors and the student council; and chairs the Council on Student Affairs and the Committee on Careers. She works with students and administrative offices to develop and clarify relevant policies for students as well as to plan major events such as orientation, Family Day, Match Day and Class Day.

From 1984 to 1997, Dr. Oriol was the director of obstetric anesthesia at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where she continues to be an active member of the obstetric anesthesia team. She also holds the position of associate professor of anesthesia at HMS. In addition to her academic and clinical responsibilities, Dr. Oriol is founder and executive director of the Family Van, a public health outreach program of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

Dr. Oriol has served on the board of trustees of CareGroup Inc., the board of directors of the Massachusetts Hospital Association and the board of the Echoing Green Foundation, a philanthropic organization that provides fellowships for social entrepreneurs. In 2000, she was awarded the Dr. Louis W. Sullivan Award for contributions to the delivery of quality health care to black men and the New England Women’s Leadership Award in Health.

Dr. Oriol is a respected researcher who has studied the effects of maternal cocaine use on fetal outcome, heart rate variability as a measure of fetal well-being, and developed an anesthetic technique that allows laboring women to ambulate. She is the inventor of two medical devices: the NEO-VAC Meconium Suction Catheter for newborn resuscitation and a fetal data processing system and method for assessing fetal heart rates during labor to detect fetuses at risk for birth asphyxia. She has presented many abstracts and authored or co-authored numerous peer reviewed articles, as well as book chapters, documentaries, reviews and case reports.

She is a member of the American Society of Anesthesiologists, the Society of Obstetric Anesthesiologists and Perinatologists, the Association of University Anesthesiologists, and the Association of American Medical Colleges and its Group on Student Affairs. Dr. Oriol received her bachelor’s degree from Boston University and her MD from Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Gardner is a board-certified Obstetrician-Gynecologist and Assistant Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology at Harvard Medical School. Since 1999, she has been a faculty member of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where she helped develop and co-directs a simulation-based perinatal team training and obstetrical safety drills program.

In 2002, Dr. Gardner joined CMS and has helped design, implement and co-direct a human simulation-based team training program for labor and delivery personnel as well as simulation instructor education. Patient safety, team training and simulation are the focus of her research.