What I’m Working On
Masters of Science in Public Health.
Between my second and third years of medical school, I spent a year studying Maternal and Child Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. During that time, my passion for health equity came to life and action with the help of courses on reproductive and perinatal epidemiology and research methods. From this experience, I realized how much health equity wasn’t being covered in medical school which led to the birth of my blog, Equity Practice.
Manual for teaching Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities.
During the didactic years of my medical education, a group of my peers and I noticed that the way we were being taught racial and ethnic health disparities was often just a regurgitation of heartbreaking statistics with no explanation of the social factors leading to these disparities. Together with the help of our passionate faculty mentors, we wrote a manual describing a better way to teach racial health disparities to pre-clinical students. Which is now published and available from Springer! Check it out here.
Research.
My research experience ranges from bench science at the National Institutes of Health where I studied the estrogen receptor and endocrine disruptors to statistical analysis for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). Since completing my MSPH, research has become a cornerstone of my work and something I wish to continue throughout the entirety of my career. At the moment, I have been working on projects that have been helping me hone my skills in research methods and statistical analysis. My research interests lie at the intersection of health equity and health tech and further understanding the ways we can use technology to improve health outcomes for marginalized populations.
Health Tech.
Before medical school, I worked for Forward, a health technology company using technology to make primary care more comprehensive and accessible to their members. With a mission to make high-quality healthcare accessible. Since then, I have been inspired by the health tech world and have tried to keep up with it while in medical school. I joined a networking group called Onboard Health, which is a group of like-minded folks looking to use health tech to make medicine more equitable. I even wrote my master’s paper on how health tech is being used to address health equity needs and am always looking to collaborate with companies and individuals on creating equitable technologies.
Volunteering & Leadership.
My love of medicine and public health is rooted in the care that others have given me. I have been on food stamps and Medicaid in my life and my healthcare provider’s willingness to care for me in those times is something that I pass on wherever I can. I’m passionate about making healthcare equitable and accessible to everyone so I prioritize volunteering with sustainable groups that provide care to systematically under-resourced communities. I have mainly participated with a group here in Denver that offers care to people experiencing homelessness, a group called Hands On Peru, which provides full-time medical care and other wellness services to Huanchaco, Peru, and through my involvement in leading DEI efforts through my school. MLK said that “no one is free until everyone is free.” I believe that no one is healthy until everyone is healthy