I grew up a little bit of everywhere.  The result – an urbanite with a longing for country life and a deep love of community as a citizen of the world.  I have wanted to be a doctor working in global health since I was seven years old.  Since then, I have been enjoying the journey, and I feel blessed to have stood on the shoulders of giants along the way. 

As an undergrad, I studied biochemistry and Spanish while fostering a love for the liberal arts at Messiah College.  A country girl at heart, I learned to love the city for its humanity, completing a semester in North Philadelphia with an emphasis on urban studies and a semester abroad in Quito, Ecuador, discovering Latin American literature, hiking amazing mountains, and learning about Latin American politics and US/Latin American international relations.   I also had the opportunity to work with several domestic urban health-outreach programs and to spend months at a time working with a health NGO in Guatemala. 

After college, I returned to Philadelphia to begin my medical studies at the University of Pennsylvania, where I co-founded the Guatemala Health Initiative, establishing a collaborative clinical and research partnership between the school of medicine and a hospital that serves the indigenous population on the shores of Lake Atitlan.  I also completed international clinical rotations in Guatemala and Botswana.  Between my third and fourth years of medical school, I received my Masters in Public Health with an emphasis on international maternal-child health from Johns Hopkins University.   My thesis explored methods to integrate successful nutrition interventions into the existing maternal-child health infrastructure in low-and middle-income countries.

I am thrilled to have found in Family Medicine a field that lets me express my diverse interests in health care while placing me on the front lines in the struggle against health-disparity.  I feel privileged to be part of a residency program that blends amazing faculty and co-residents with a diverse and supportive environment, and I absolutely love my clinic at Downtown Family Medicine – which brings public health and international culture into my clinical practice.

On a more personal note, this past January, the love of my life and I returned to Guatemala to get married!  Andre (a general surgery resident) and I are thrilled to have landed in the beautiful northwest and are looking forward to many more mountain hikes, morning runs, cups of coffee, and kayaking trips before fulfilling our dream of working abroad.