Our success is intimately linked to the accomplishments of each and every member of our department.
Each month, four members are nominated and featured to celebrate their commitment to patient care, education, and research.
Current Featured Anesthesiology Department Members
Catherine Gould, PA-C
Physician Assistant
Parita Jani, MD
ACTA Fellow
Sherry McKinnon
Manager of Clinical Research, Regulatory and Compliance
Andrew Schaffer, MD
Resident Physician
Featured Anesthesiology Department Members Archive
Ally Tacony, MBA
Director of Business Operations – Finance
Department of Anesthesiology Featured Member: January 2024
Ally Tacony recently joined the Department of Anesthesiology as the Director of Business Operations-Finance. She’s excited about the opportunity to learn something new.
Ally is a St. Louis native, born in St. Louis county and moved to Hillsboro as a teenager. She graduated from Webster University with a bachelor’s degree in accounting and an MBA. She started her career as an intern at AT&T and spent 13 years in various roles in accounting and finance. Ally has been married for 10 years to her husband, Nathan, and they have an 8-year-old daughter named Ellie.
Outside of work, Ally likes talking her husband into home projects, traveling, spending time outdoors (in nice weather), and spending time with family and friends.
Brandon Tan, MD
Resident Physician, Class of 2023
Department of Anesthesiology Featured Member: February 2022
Brandon Tan, MD, is a PGY-4 ASAP resident/fellow currently engaged in ion channel/membrane research while continuing his Pediatric Anesthesia Fellowship. He is fascinated by membranes and kids’ brains! He attended Duke University for his undergraduate degree and the University of Cincinnati for medical school.
While not working, Brandon can be found spending time with his family (wife and 2 kids), singing, and telling the best/worst jokes (puns).
Loc Thang, MD, PhD
Instructor, Anesthesiology and Pain Management
Department of Anesthesiology Featured Member: November 2021
Loc Thang, MD, PhD, was born in Vietnam and immigrated to the United States when he was a young boy.
He obtained his Master of Biomedical Engineering degree from the University of Michigan and then completed the MSTP program at Michigan State University.
He is an alumnus of the Department’s Academic Scholars Advancement Program (ASAP) where he completed his residency training, a pain medicine fellowship, and nearly two years of research time. Currently, he is an instructor of anesthesiology and pain management. He also has served as the associated program director of the pain medicine fellowship since 2020.
His main interest is to alleviate human suffering of pain through educating the next generation of pain physicians, caring for acute/chronic pain patients, and researching ways to understand how norepinephrine modulate moods/pain.
Loc enjoys spending time outdoors including traveling and skiing. One of his memorable adventures was three months he spent in Ghana researching plant medicine. In his spare time, Loc enjoys hanging out with his lovely wife, Kim, and his two energetic sons, Isaiah and Isaac. The boys love to spend time together making garden beds and digging holes for Kim to plant her many beautiful flowers.
Jeremy Thompson, MD, PhD
Instructor in Anesthesiology
Department of Anesthesiology Featured Member: October 2025
Jeremy Thompson, MD, PhD, is an Instructor in Anesthesiology in the Division of Pain Management and a member of the Washington University Pain Center, conducting research in Meaghan Creed’s Laboratory on how chronic pain reshapes mesolimbic dopamine circuitry with a focus on SK channel regulation in VTA→NAc neurons. He earned a BE in biomedical engineering from Vanderbilt University, completed his MD/PhD in translational neuroscience at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, and then finished anesthesiology residency and pain medicine fellowship at WashU Medicine through the Academic Scholars Advancement Program. He is currently supported by the FAER Alison Cole Endowed Mentored Research Training Grant. Outside of work, he enjoys playing with his cat, baking, building LEGO sets, and running in Forest Park.