Dantemerlino - Overview

Dante Merlino, MD, PhD

Fellow, Head & Neck Surgical Oncology & Microvascular Reconstruction | University of Pennsylvania

Former Resident, Otolaryngology - Head & Neck Surgery | Mayo Clinic

🧠 About Me

Physician–scientist and head & neck surgeon passionate about combining clinical practice, data science, and AI-driven analytics to improve surgical outcomes and healthcare efficiency.

🔬 Current Focus

🏥 Clinical: Head & Neck Oncology, Microvascular Reconstruction, Transoral Robotic Surgery
💻 Research: Surgical quality metrics, treatment deescalation of HPV-mediated oropharyngeal cancer
🧩 Technology: Python • SQL • LangChain • Databricks • LM Studio • Epic Clarity/Caboodle • Google Cloud Platform

🚀 Featured Projects

🧠 AI Agents for Surgical Analytics

Developed a post-operative readmission prediction agent using mlflow and LangGraph.
Created an “Optimization Master” that automatically rewrites SQL with early filters, CTEs, and execution plan hints.
Integrated with Databricks LLM endpoints for multi-query reasoning and report generation.

📊 Healthcare Informatics & Dashboards

Built dashboards from Epic → Databricks pipelines for quality improvement and volume tracking.
Implemented Epic Clarity/Caboodle ETL into Databricks using structured SQL + Python workflows.
Designed LLM-assisted documentation review and readmission classification models.

🧬 Research & Publications

Exploring AI and large language models for clinical documentation optimization.
Focus on AI governance, ethics, and responsible adoption in surgical practice.

🤝 Collaboration Interests

🧩 AI & machine learning in clinical applications
🏥 Databricks + Epic integration for healthcare data pipelines
📈 Surgical outcomes, predictive analytics, and quality registries
⚙️ LangChain, LangGraph, and local LLM deployments (LM Studio, Ollama)