Welcome to our Faculty page

Please click on the faculty names to expand their biography so you can get to know us!

Program Director

Mark Rasnake, MD, FIDSA

Dr Rasnake received his degree in Engineering Science and Mechanics from UT Knoxville and his MD degree from UT Memphis. He completed internal medicine residency and infectious diseases fellowship training with the US Air Force at Wilford Hall Medical Center in San Antonio, TX. He has taken part in multiple international experiences in tropical disease and HIV medicine as well as educational missions in the areas of HIV, pandemic influenza preparedness, and bioterrorism. He joined the University of Tennessee Graduate School of Medicine in 2007 in the Infectious Diseases division, and served as Program Director of the UTGSM Internal Medicine Residency from July 2008 through December 2021. He joined Naples Community Hospital as Program Director of the Internal Medicine Residency in January 2022. Hobbies include running, woodworking, and time on the water fishing with his wife and son.

Dr Rasnake is board certified in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases.

Associate Program Directors

Tracy Walsh, M.D.

Dr. Tracy Walsh is a board certified Internal Medicine physician. She earned her undergraduate and medical degrees from the University of Miami. She completed her internal medicine residency at the University of Chicago, where she was recognized as an outstanding teaching resident on the general medicine wards. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and the American College of Physicians. Dr. Walsh's medical interests include preventative medicine and cardiovascular disease. She was raised in Southwest Florida and enjoys watching the Miami Hurricane sports teams in her free time. Like any true Floridian, she also enjoys escaping to the sunny Naples beaches with her family as well.

Ricardo Franco-Sadud, M.D

Ricardo Franco-Sadud, M.D. is an associate professor of medicine and academic hospitalist at the Naples Community Hospital (NCH). He joined NCH in 2017, to develop a new academic hospitalist team, in order to support a newly created Internal Medicine Residency Program (affiliated to Mayo School of Medicine and Science). He joined NCH after Medical College of Wisconsin, where he successfully established a Bedside Procedure Service that has rapidly expanded in scope and volume of procedures. The MCW bedside procedure service is still successful, and currently performs procedures for internal medicine, hematology/oncology, cardiology and transplant surgery. He intends to use this expertise in bedside ultrasound to train Internal Medicine residents at NCH on common bedside procedures and Point of Care Ultrasound (POCUS) for bedside diagnosis and therapeutic decisions. He imported this concept from Cook County Hospital in Chicago, Illinois where he established and directed the service from 2007-2015. While at Cook County Hospital, his procedure service included 5 attending physicians and one nurse. Initially, the service performed common bedside procedures but the scope was eventually expanded to include bedside core-needle biopsies of lymph nodes and insertion of tunneled catheters under fluoroscopy. He also participated in the only hospitalist study to assess the impact of hand carried ultrasound on the care of patients with chest pain at Cook County Hospital. As a dedicated educator, he has earned the Osler Award for Ward Teaching Attending on 2007 and 2012 at Cook County Hospital, Medical Student Teacher Award at MCW in 2017 and Inpatient Teaching Attending Award at NCH Internal Medicine Residency Program at NCH in 2018 and 2020. Dr. Franco-Sadud has participated in many local and national continuing medical education events to teach applications of portable ultrasound, including the Society of Hospital Medicine’s Point-of-care Ultrasound for the Hospitalist Pre-course since 2010.

Douglas Harrington, D.O.

Dr. Harrington is a pulmonary critical care physician, formal training at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, where he completed internal medicine residency, chief medical resident year, and a pulmonary critical care fellowship. Subsequently practiced and taught at MGCH, a teaching institution in Michigan. Dr. Harrington relocated from Michigan to Naples Florida in 2003. Dr. Harrington is an associate program director of the Internal Medicine residency program. Actively involved in the initiation and establishment of the internal medicine residency at NCH. Dr. Harrington has received numerous teaching awards, while training at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit Michigan, subsequently while at MCGH in Michigan and subsequently at NCH. Dr. Harrington recently completed a year-long sabbatical/fellowship at Mayo Clinic in simulation medicine. Dr. Harrington is presently leading the initiative to establish a state-of-the-art multidisciplinary simulation center at NCH, which will be an integral part of resident education. Dr. Harrington holds academic appointments at Mayo Clinic as an adjunct Assistant Professor of medicine and at University Central Florida as associate Professor of medicine. Dr. Harrington's focus in medical education is patient and learner centered with concentration on bedside rounds, echo skills, critical thinking and applying evidence base medicine with physiological understanding to improve outcomes.

Academic Hospitalists

Brian Pulford, M.D.

Dr. Pulford dually graduated with his Doctor of Medicine degree and Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Connecticut School of Medicine and School of Business, respectively. He then went on to complete his residency in Internal Medicine, also at the University of Connecticut. He is Board Certified and a Diplomate of the American Board of Internal Medicine. Dr. Pulford holds academic appointment with both the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science and the University of Central Florida College of Medicine. He has been practicing at NCH since 2017, being the first Academic Hospitalist hired when the NCH Internal Medicine Residency Program commenced. He has won numerous teaching awards, including being voted the “Most Inspirational” faculty member. He is the founding Program Director of the Transitional Year Residency. In his free time, Dr. Pulford’s interests include playing golf (often with his residents), traveling, aviation, meteorology, enjoying the sunny beaches of Southwest Florida, and watching UConn basketball.

Julia Skettini, D.O.

Julia Skettini is a graduate of the Internal Medicine Residency here at NCH. She has recently transitioned to an Academic Teaching Attending. She loves to teach and to continue to invest in and grow with the program. She enjoys spending time in Naples with her family on her off days.

Carlos Quintero, M.D.

Carlos B. Quintero is Board Certified in Internal Medicine and has been affiliated with NCH Healthcare System for 14 years. He earned a degree in Business Administration at Boston University prior to receiving his Medical Degree from Ponce School of Medicine in Ponce, Puerto Rico. He did his Internal Medicine residency training at the Ochsner Medical Center in New Orleans, Louisiana where he also served as Chief Medical Resident. Dr. Quintero is Adjunct Instructor in Medicine with the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science and Associate Professor of Internal Medicine with the University of Central Florida, College of Medicine. He was recently named Chief Quality Officer for the NCH Healthcare System and serves as Chairman of the Department of Internal Medicine as well as the Director of the NCH Physicians Group Hospital Medicine Division at the Baker Campus. He is a part of the core Academic Faculty for the NCH Healthcare System Internal Medicine Residency Program and serves as member of several committees at NCH which include the Practitioners Excellence Committee and the Medical Executive Committee. Dr. Quintero has been an intricate member of the NCH COVID response team and is involved in several observational and prospective research projects among other patient safety and quality projects. Dr. Quintero has been the recipient of several awards at NCH including Physician of the Year in 2019 as well as the Physician Nurse Partnership Award, and the Carl Liebert MD Award for fostering peer review and quality of care initiatives. He is a current member of the American College of Physicians, the Society of Hospital Medicine as well as the Collier County Medical Society. Dr. Quintero is married to his wife Catalina and has three children, Sofia, Nico, and Santiago.

Alimer Gonzalez, M.D.

Dr. Gonzalez graduated Summa Cum Laude from Wake Forest University. He obtained his M.D. from the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and is a member of Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA) honor medical society. He completed his residency in Internal Medicine at Harvard University's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts. Prior to joining NCH, he worked as a hospitalist at Massachusetts General Hospital. As a member of the NCH Academic Hospitalist Team, Dr. Gonzalez serves as site director of the University of Central Florida College of Medicine 3rd year medical student clerkship in Internal Medicine/Family Medicine. He was awarded the NCH inpatient medicine teaching faculty of the year award during his first year with our program.

Carlos Aguirre, M.D.

Dr. Carlos J Aguirre went to medical school at American University in the Caribbean and did an Internal Medicine Residency at St. John Hospital and Medical Center. There he completed a year of Chief Resident and Intern Faculty prior to coming to work at Naples Community Hospital. Carlos’ passion is towards medical education and integrating the pathophysiology of disease with medical management and how clinical trials push our understanding of medicine. Carlos additional is Co-Chair of our Faculty Development Program where he works with our faculty to improve our teaching across different specialties.

Ricardo Franco-Sadud, M.D.

Additional Interviewing Faculty

Carl Ruthman, MD

Specialty: Critical Care/Pulmonary Medicine

Michele Ramirez, MD

Specialty: Oncology

Rebecca Witherell, M.D

Specialty: Infectious Disease

Designated Institutional Officer

Hermes Koop, M.D.

Dr. Koop was born in Baghdad, Iraq to Dutch parents and travelled the world while growing up. He lived in the Middle East, the Netherlands, England, Nigeria and the United States before finishing high school in Australia. He attended college at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas and medical school at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. He completed his Internal Medicine residency at the Good Samaritan Medical Center and the V.A. Medical Center in Phoenix, Arizona. Dr. Koop moved to Naples in 1992 and has practiced both outpatient and inpatient Internal Medicine over the years. He began his current concierge practice in 2009. He and his wife are the parents of triplet boys and a girl. Dr. Koop has been actively involved with the evolution of graduate medical education at NCH since the beginning (2014).

Ombudsman

Paul Jones, M.D.

Dr. Paul Jones is a Board certified Family Physician who has been practicing medicine in Naples since 1990. He graduated from medical school at The University of Cincinnati in 1987 and completed his Family Medicine residency training at USF in St. Petersburg, Florida. He and his wife Susan moved to Naples in July of 1990 where he assumed the practice of Louis Moore M.D. Dr. Jones is a founding Board member of Community Health Partners- the physician hospital organization in Collier County. He is a volunteer physician and past Chairman of the Board of The Neighborhood Clinic and was chosen Collier County Medical Society’s Physician of the Year in 2017. He also is a founder and past president of Anchor Health Centers. He has served two terms as Chairman of the Family Medicine Department at NCH and 6 ½ years as President of the medical staff. He currently serves as the Physician Advisor for NCH and was chosen as NCH Physician of the Year for 2014. He is very involved in The Naples North Rotary and is a past president and Board member. He has served on the board of the Winged Foot Scholarship Foundation and the Business Hall of Fame selection committee for Junior Achievement and is a 1999 graduate of Leadership Collier. He currently has a private, highly personalized practice combining wellness, in hospital and outpatient care to his patients.

Additional faculty by specialty can be found at nchmd.org under education- Internal Medicine Residency Program.