Dr. Schears is currently the Medical Director at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Trained as a pediatric Intensivist and anesthesiologist, Dr. Schears has a long standing interest in reducing patient complications and improving our approach to vascular access. He did his pediatric residency at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, his anesthesia residency, pediatric anesthesia fellowship and pediatric critical care fellowship at John’s Hopkins hospital. He worked at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia for 5 years and was recruited to the Mayo Clinic in 2001 to head the ECMO service. There he is the physician liaison to the nurse led PICC team, Medical Director of the ECMO Service and Co-Director of the Congenital Heart Unit. He is on the editorial board for JAVA and serves on the AVA Board of Directors as Treasurer. He is very active with product development to help reduce complications and has given hundreds of presentations locally, regionally, nationally and internationally.