College of Medicine Alumni

Raymond Cho, MD, has excelled serving his patients, his country and people less fortunate around the world. He is currently a professor and director of ophthalmic plastic and reconstructive surgery in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at the Ohio State University College of Medicine. Previously he had served 21 years on active duty with the U.S. Army, including six months in Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Dr. Cho also has brought his medical skills to several international medical missions.

After graduating from the United States Military Academy at West Point and the UC College of Medicine, Dr. Cho completed his general surgery internship at the Brooke Army Medical Center before becoming a brigade surgeon at Fort Bragg, N.C. In 2001, he completed an ophthalmology residency at the San Antonio Brooke Army Medical Center/Wilford Hall Medical Center, then became chief of ophthalmology service at Ireland Army Community Hospital in Fort Knox, Ky, and Keller Army Community Hospital in West Point, N.Y. While at Fort Knox, Dr. Cho founded the base’s Warfighter Refractive Eye Surgery Program, providing critical refractive surgery technology to soldiers. He also founded the Cadet Refractive Eye Surgery Program and the West Point Refractive Eye Surgery Center, which served Army installations in the northeast.

From November 2005 to April 2006, Dr. Cho deployed to Iraq as the chief of the ophthalmology service at the 332^nd Air Force Theater Hospital at Balad Air Base during one of the Iraq War’s most violent periods, caring for injured military members and civilians.

Dr. Cho completed an ophthalmic plastic and reconstructive surgery fellowship at the University of Michigan in 2009. Later he was chief of the Department of Ophthalmology at the San Antonio Military Medical Center and director of oculoplastic and orbital surgery at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

Retiring from the U.S. Army in 2015 at the rank of Colonel, Dr. Cho joined the faculty of Ohio State University where he treats patients with complex oculoplastic and orbital conditions and diseases while conducting clinical research.

Dr. Cho has traveled the world on medical missions caring for people in need of his unique talents, including in Mexico, Honduras, and Ukraine last year as war raged there; he will return to Ukraine later this year as surgical team leader.

The recipient of several teaching and mentoring awards at Ohio State, Dr. Cho received the 2015 American Academy of Ophthalmology Achievement Award. Among his many military awards are the Legion of Merit, Bronze Star, Meritorious Service Medal, Joint Service Commendation Medal, Army Commendation Medal, Army Achievement Medal, and Expert Field Medical Badge. He also has been inducted into the Order of Military Medical Merit for his sustained contributions to the betterment of Army Medicine. He is currently vice president and president-elect of the North American Society of Academic Orbital Surgeons.

Dr. Cho is married to Christine Szczurek Cho, MD, a fellow 1994 graduate of the UC College of Medicine.

Cincinnati native Jennifer Kaplan, MD, has positively impacted countless children and their families as an internationally recognized expert in pediatric critical care and sepsis in children. She is a member of the Division of Critical Care at Cincinnati Children’s and provides clinical care to critically ill children in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU). She is a professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine.

Dr. Kaplan received her undergraduate degree in biology from Washington University in St. Louis, then returned to Cincinnati to attend medical school. She completed her pediatric residency at Orlando Regional Healthcare’s Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children, then completed her fellowship training in critical care medicine at Cincinnati Children’s. During her fellowship she also served as a research fellow under the mentorship of Basilia Zingarelli, MD, PhD, professor in the Department of Pediatrics and Dr. Hector Wong. Dr. Kaplan joined the College of Medicine faculty in 2006, earned her master’s degree in epidemiology the following year, and became a full professor in 2021.

A leader in caring for children in the Cincinnati Children’s PICU, Dr. Kaplan has served as the unit’s trauma and surgery representative on multi-disciplinary collaboratives. She was one of the Trauma Surgery Clinical Care Team members who received the Cincinnati Children’s Clinical Care Team award in 2020 for improving the care of trauma patients. She also has been an active participant on numerous hospital committees ensuring the safety and quality of care of the hospital’s sickest and most severely injured patients.

Her dedication to her patients has also inspired Dr. Kaplan to conduct research into some of the issues that confront children in intensive care settings, with a focus on inflammatory responses in sepsis and the increased susceptibility of diet-induced obesity to sepsis. She has been involved in research that has garnered nearly $4 million in funding, including several awards from the National Institutes of Health. She has been a site investigator for several clinical trials investigating treatment of critically ill children with trauma, septic shock and immune dysfunction. In her research lab, she and her team are attempting to better understand how such issues as obesity affect outcomes during sepsis while also learning more about the role of adipose tissue in sepsis, and its molecular features.

Board certified in pediatrics and pediatric critical care medicine, Dr. Kaplan was elected a Clinical Councilor for the Shock Society in 2016, in 2021 she became a Fellow of the American College of Critical Care Medicine, and she was selected as Program Chairr for the Shock Society Annual Conference in 2022. She has received two presidential citations from the Society of Critical Care Medicine.

Dr. Kaplan is known as an outstanding teacher of medical students, residents, fellows and advanced practice nurses. She has been a faculty advisor to numerous College of Medicine students as well as a dedicated mentor to students, residents and junior faculty, including a primary clinical mentor to critical care medicine fellows. Since 2021, she has chaired the Clinical Competency Committee for Cincinnati Children’s critical care fellows and is an Associate Program Director for the critical care fellowship program.