Meet Our Team

Our Access & Transport Center care team is made up of pediatric hospitalists, intensivists, neonatologists, anesthesiologists, respiratory therapists, and registered high-risk nurses and nurses cross-trained to provide neonatal and pediatric intensive care.

Medical Director: Alireza Fathi, M.D., MBA, FAAP

Dr. Fathi is board-certiﬁed in pediatrics and pediatric critical care and serves as the PICU medical director of the Access & Transport Center at Miller Children’s & Women’s.
Dr. Fathi’s special interests include pulmonary hypertension in children with congenital heart disease and the use of hypertonic saline in treatment of children with head trauma.
He teaches at the University of California, Irvine as an Assistant Clinical Professor and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Dr. Fathi speaks Farsi, Turkish and English.

Albert Antonio, D.O.

Dr. Antonio is a full-time neonatologist and board-certiﬁed pediatrician and serves as the NICU medical director of the Access & Transport Center at Miller Children’s & Women’s.
He oversees the operations, program development, staff and physician training in transport medicine of critically ill neonates. He also organizes the outreach and education efforts for referring institutions.
Dr. Antonio is committed to improving patient outcomes by improving communication and teamwork skills among health care professionals as a TeamSTEPPS master trainer.
His research interests include neonatal resuscitation, respiratory physiology, pulmonary hypertension, high-frequency ventilation and ultrasonography.

Christopher J. Babbitt, M.D.

Dr. Babbitt is board-certiﬁed in pediatrics with a sub-specialty in pediatric critical care and medical director of the Cherese Mari Laulhere Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) at Miller Children’s & Women’s.
He is a member of several professional societies including the California Thoracic Society, American Academy of Pediatrics, AAP Section of Critical Care Medicine and Society of Critical Care Medicine.
Throughout his career, Dr. Babbitt has authored several peer-review articles and presented research nationally at the American Academy of Pediatrics, Society of Critical Care Medicine, American College of Chest Physicians and The World Federation of Pediatric Critical Care Meetings. Dr. Babbitt is also a reviewer for several pediatric and critical care journals.
Dr. Babbitt’s research interests include traumatic brain injury and respiratory failure. He serves as the Pediatric Medical Center (PMC) medical director.

Kenneth Chan, M.D.

Dr. Chan is a board-certiﬁed physician in obstetrics, gynecology and in maternal-fetal medicine. He leads the effort to reduce Cesarean section rates at Miller Children’s & Women’s and other surrounding hospitals.
His work has appeared in multiple publications, including the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the Journal of the Society of Gynecologic Investigation.
Dr. Chan is an associate clinical professor at the University of California, Irvine Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine.
He is a member of The Society of Maternal Fetal Medicine, the Society of Reproductive Investigations, International Society of Prenatal Diagnosis, the International Society of Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology and the North American Study Group of Diabetes in Pregnancy.

Shawna Simkins, RN, MSN, CCRN

Shawna is a registered nurse and serves as the director of clinical operations for the PICU and Access & Transport Center at Miller Children’s & Women’s.
She has special training in both transport and critical care nursing. Shawna is a TeamSTEPPS Master Trainer.
Shawna is a member of the American Association of Critical Care Nurses, as well as the American Academy of Pediatrics section on transport medicine.
She has served as a bedside nurse and an assistant unit manager in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) during her 16 years at Miller Children’s & Women’s and currently serves as the Clinical Operations Director.

Antoine Soliman, M.D., FAAP

Dr. Soliman is board-certiﬁed in both pediatrics and neonatal-perinatal medicine, and serves as the medical director of the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at Miller Children’s & Women’s.
Dr. Soliman is a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics and a member of the California Association of Neonatologists.
He has been listed as a Physician of Excellence by the Orange County Medical Association.
His primary areas of clinical research include safety and quality improvement in the care of pre-term infants, non-invasive ventilator strategies in extremely low birth weight infants, and newborn infectious diseases.