Health Equity, Advocacy, and Policy (HEAP) Track

Health Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests: Dr. Brenner's interests are focused on cancer disparities both in outcomes and in prevention. She hopes to build her skills as a physician advocate so she can affect change to better prevent and treat cancer among vulnerable groups 

Health Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests: Alexis is a second-generation Cuban American born and raised in New Orleans. After graduating from Colorado College, she obtained a Master in Public Health with a focus in International Health from Tulane and served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Guatemala working in Maternal and Child Health. She then returned to New Orleans and found work helping immigrant and Spanish-speaking families navigate the health care system before getting her medical degree from LSU. Now in OGBYN residency, she hopes to continue building off these past experiences and become an active member of the Atlanta community by getting involved in local advocacy efforts, especially those promoting access to equitable reproductive health care for recently incarcerated individuals. 

Health Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests:  After an early career in social entrepreneurship, an internship year in Pediatrics, and a tour as a US Naval flight surgeon, I now recognize that clinical medicine is necessary but not sufficient in solving the health issues that plague the world's population. Big problems need big solutions and addressing the root causes of health inequity requires the implementation of policy, systems, and infrastructure that affords easier and more economical access to healthy choices for all. In particular, I am interested in lifestyle medicine, global health, immigrant and refugee health, and the inextricable link between the health of humans and the planet. I hope that my involvement in this track will provide me with the necessary skills to make a meaningful change to the greatest number possible.

Health Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests: My goal in participating in the residency track is to gain the knowledge and skills necessary to become a strong advocate for health equity and policy change. I want to learn how to effectively work with lawmakers and policymakers to create policies that will improve access to care for all patients. I also want to learn how to engage with communities to address their specific needs and develop sustainable solutions to healthcare disparities

Health Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests: My interests in health policy include firearm violence prevention and maternal & infant mortality. Throughout medical school, I was involved in firearm violence prevention research and tried to integrate ways to counsel patients into our medical education curriculum. In residency, I hope to explore ways to increases maternal access to care to then reduce infant mortality rates through community engagement. 

Health Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests: As a first-generation American born to immigrant parents, issues pertaining to advocacy and health equity have always been a fixture in my everyday life. Engaging with my community through public service has been a consistent theme throughout my life and through my journey in medicine. I plan to continue exploring my interests in health equity, advocacy, and policy throughout my fellowship training by examining how social and environmental determinants of health influence health outcomes in pediatric kidney disease and finding ways to implement initiatives designed to improve the health outcomes of children from underserved communities by increasing their access to healthcare and facilitating their utilization of healthcare services. Through the HEAP track, I intend to initiate social determinants of health screenings in the pediatric nephrology clinics I work in, connect patients and families who screen positive to helpful community resources, and implement voter registration processes in the clinical setting to give patients and families more power in influencing the policies that impact their communities. 

Health Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests: I am deeply interested in holistic patient care, particularly how community engagement enhances patient outcomes alongside medical treatment. I value community programs that improve health and wellness outside clinical settings, addressing the numerous barriers to healthcare access. Through the HEAP program, I aim to enhance my understanding of health policy to advocate effectively for community programs and policies that foster a more equitable, connected, and healthy community in Atlanta. I'm interested in civic engagement, such as voter registration in healthcare settings, which empowers patients to influence social and structural determinants of health. Additionally, given my interest in oncology, I intend to advocate for equitable treatment and preventive care for vulnerable populations.

Health Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests: I am a first-generation Mexican American who is deeply passionate about health equity, patient advocacy and addressing health disparities. I completed my internal medicine training at Dell School of Medicine in Austin, Texas and am currently in my first year of Hematology Oncology fellowship at Emory. My journey in medicine is driven by a commitment to improving access to quality healthcare for underserved communities. Through my work, I aspire to make a meaningful impact on the lives of my patients and contribute to a more equitable healthcare system. 

Health Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests: My name is Laneisha Maldonado Jaime. I was born and raised in Aguada, Puerto Rico. I completed medical school in Ponce Health Sciences University and moved to Baltimore for Internal medicine residency at Johns Hopkins Bayview. I’ve been in Emory since 2023 when I joined the Hematology/Oncology fellowship. My career and research interests are towards helping the Latinx community accessing oncologic care in large academic centers and increasing diversity in clinical trial enrollment. I am also passionate about advocacy, health policy and increasing minority representation in medicine. 

Health Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests: My primary academic interests lie in the intersection of medicine, public health, and policy in the spheres of addiction medicine and the health of individuals who are justice-involved. As an emergency medicine physician-in training, I hope to use my specialty's unique vantage point at the gates of the healthcare system to identify and improve upon the health and well-being of marginalized populations within our communities.  Through the HEAP track, I plan to materialize this aspiration through mentorship and support from experts in our field, all while learning about the policy development process and how to best and most effectively advocate for my patients. 

Health Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests:  Health equity was one of my biggest motivators in choosing the field of emergency medicine. Social factors play an outsize role in determining patient presentations and outcomes, and that is not a reality I want to accept as status quo. While we can all work to advocate for our patients on an individual basis every day, we’re at the hospital, learning how to step back and address the overarching systems at play can effect larger-scale change. I am particularly motivated by the difficulties our unhoused patients face and hope to focus my efforts during my time in HEAP on filling in the gaps before and after they enter our healthcare system.

Health Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests:  Dr. Weirich’s research and academic interests include disparities in access to oncologic care, specifically for patients affected by gynecologic cancer. She is currently investigating how these inequities impact both tumor biology and cancer outcomes. As part of the HEAP track, she is excited to apply her knowledge of cancer treatment on the level of healthcare systems and policy so that she can improve outcomes and be an advocate for her patients.

Health Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests:

Health Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests: As an OBGYN resident, I have witnessed how integral healthcare policy is in our practice every single day. I am committed to developing as a physician-advocate and I hope to build on these skills while participating in the HEAP track. Specifically, my interests include addressing the maternal morbidity and mortality crisis, reproductive justice, sexual health education, and transgender healthcare. My goal is to learn about what work is currently being done to address disparities in these fields and how I can contribute to meaningful change. 

Health Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests: I am passionate about carceral health and improving access to quality health care for those who are impacted by the justice system. This community is a highly stigmatized group that is frequently overlooked when considering underrepresented and disenfranchised communities related to health care. I am a firm believer that as health care is a right, they too are entitled to equitable resources so they can better manage their physical and mental health while within the justice system and afterward. As an emergency medicine physician, I am also an advocate for preserving the rights and dignity of this population while in the hospital and maintaining a safe environment when interacting with police enforcement. My goal is to create a sustainable policy for hospital systems to clearly state appropriate interactions with police enforcement when treating incarcerated patients in the hospital to protect their rights and access to care.

Health Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests: Dr. Calzada is interested in measuring the role that a person’s identity and a community’s demographic impacts the way they receive care. Specially with my non English-speaking patients, who deserve quality interpreter services that sometimes fall short. The non-standardization hiring process of interpreters greatly affects how our patients who speak another language interact with our health system, leaving them dependent on who was assigned to them that day. My hope is to better understand the design, procurement, and implementation processes around these services to make them more responsive to the needs of our patients. 

Health Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests: I first became interested in health advocacy in medical school while trying to organize through Students for a National Health Program, an organization dedicated to establishing a single-payer national health care system. Improving health outcomes at the systems level dovetailed well with my interests in public health as well. Advocacy and policy are the action steps of public health, and through my involvement in the HEAP track, I hope to find ways to lay the policy groundwork for a healthier Atlanta. 

Health Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests: I hope to gain a better understanding of the resources available to patients and families at both a local, state, and national level. In doing so, I aim to improve the emergency department's ability to address social determinants of health, specifically addressing barriers to obtaining resources and improving the disposition of patients.

Health Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests: Mental illness profoundly affects our society, from the individual to population levels, and some groups more than others. My interests lie in understanding and working to address social determinants of mental health as well as expanding access to services with an emphasis on equity. Along these lines, in the future, I aim to engage in creative, advocacy-focused community-based participatory research, integration of behavioral health into primary care and other healthcare settings, and development of culturally-optimized programs for mental health service delivery via paraprofessionals and community health workers.  

Health Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests: My fascination and interest in health equity and advocacy started in medical school after doing some medical mission trips to other countries. After trying to understand different systems that impact overall access to health, I wanted to apply that to the different systematic inequities in neurology specifically. While there are a lot of research and studies done in stroke, I hope to understand different barriers to specialized care in other subspecialties of neurology and why those inequities exist. 

Health Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests: As a first-generation immigrant to the United States along with my parents, I witnessed firsthand the intersection between social determinants of health and immigration. My current interests in health equity, advocacy, and policy revolve around the social determinants of health for marginalized patients including refugees, immigrants, and asylum populations. I seek to better understand health disparities and how social determinants of health will lead to poorer outcomes in patients. During my time as an internal medicine resident at Emory, I have had the opportunity to be involved in the social medicine distinction and develop relationships with mentors working on various projects. One project of particular interest to me has been trying to establish a medical-legal partnership (MLP) between Grady and legal clinics in the vicinity to address the most common health-harming legal needs of patients seeking care at Grady Memorial Hospital. The ultimate goal would be to have in-house point-of-care legal help for patients coming to Grady. I look forward learning new skills and knowledge through the HEAP track to advocate for health policies that address social determinants of health systematically to further health equity. 

Health Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests: My current interests are Interpartner violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking. The intersection with health equity involves identifying how persons of vulnerable to and affected by this are underserved in emergency departments and how to make care more equitable by addressing the education and training that emergency medicine residents and physicians receive to identify such persons. Additionally, I am interested in how policy on a state and federal level impacts the subsequent course of such persons outside the emergency department. Specifically this is in regards to access to placement in shelters and emergency housing and how advocating at these levels can enable ED physicians with the tools necessary to give well rounded medical and social justice centered care. 

Health Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests: Pediatric Emergency Medicine provides a window into the array of conditions that are impacting the pediatric community, and often a first glimpse into glaring health inequities. My interests lie in using these PEM clinical interactions to think about how best to advocate upstream for the health of all children in our larger community. I'm particularly interested in the use of mapping visualizations to better identify drivers of disparities, and to determine how we can work with community partners to alleviate existing health inequities. 

Health Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests: As a preventive medicine fellow with a family medicine background, my goal is to address health inequities in chronic disease and barriers to healthcare by working in a public health capacity. Specifically, I hope to work to address the rising rates of obesity and diabetes. I hope to use the training in the HEAP program to become a better advocate for communities and to collaborate with other physicians on systemic changes.   

Health Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests: My personal experience with Haiti’s cash for service system and my professional experience working with medically underserved populations here in the US have showed me that traditional healthcare delivery alone is not enough to maintain healthy populations. Existing health disparities within many communities threaten health equity, because access to care for minority populations is often limited by factors such as high unemployment rates, lack of education, racial prejudices, and overall mistrust of the medical community. Therefore, I am passionate about social justice in healthcare delivery, along with the impact of social determinants of health on maternal health and chronic disease management in marginalized populations. In the future, I plan to pursue a career addressing health disparities and health equity in marginalized populations. 

Health Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests: My passion for health equity, advocacy and policy stems from my desire to help some of the most vulnerable patients—those with mental illness. Specifically, I have an interest in improving access to psychiatric care for marginalized populations, including those facing homelessness, financial insecurity and incarceration. Through advocacy and policy work I hope to contribute to the development of more robust mental health infrastructure at both the state and national level. With psychiatric care that is available, consistent and compassionate, I believe that individual and aggregate health outcomes will improve.   

Health Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests: My interests in health equity, advocacy, and policy center around medical care for incarcerated patients. I had several formative experiences in medical school that exposed me to the massive inequities they experience when it comes to their health care. Emergency medicine physicians are often the primary source of health care for incarcerated patients as making it to outpatient appointments can be very challenging. I think my career as an ED physician will make me uniquely qualified to do a needs assessment and use what I see to try to change the healthcare system for these vulnerable patients. My goals as a member of this track are to learn how I can better be a physician advocate and gain the skills that will enable me to work towards more equity for this patient population. 

Health Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests: Through my work in primary care, I have appreciated the longevity and resources required to appropriately treat chronic health conditions, both on behalf of the patient and the physician, and have recognized how this patient population is uniquely affected by an array of barriers to healthcare. Through the HEAP program, I plan to advocate for policy changes that ensure legal protection against insurance discrimination for pre-existing conditions and legislation that lowers the burden of rising healthcare costs.  Additionally, my interest in oncology, I plan to investigate methods of equalizing access to clinical trials and cancer screenings, specifically seeking to improve early detection in susceptible populations such as those within the carceral system. With our shared interest in healthcare equity, I am looking forward to working with this motivated group to do our part in the realization of healthcare as a human right.    

Health Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests: I believe that we must use our privileges as physicians to advocate for a more equitable and just healthcare system, and I am excited to receive dedicated time to learn and perform this work as part of the HEAP track. As part of the track, I hope to form connections with community partners in Atlanta to inform my health advocacy work. One specific project I hope to participate in is connecting Grady’s EHR more directly to community resources and organizations. I also hope to advocate for more humanistic, patient centered care for incarcerated patients brought to Grady and Emory hospitals for care.   

Health Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests: As physicians, we observe the relationship between health equity and policy, or the lack thereof, in our daily clinical work at the micro-level. I am eager to learn more about the intricacy of this relationship at the macro-level. I am also interested in the relationship between research and policy, and I look forward to acquiring knowledge on our means of advocacy as physicians and researchers.

Health Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests: My interest in health equity, advocacy, and policy began while serving with AmeriCorps City Year when I saw my middle school students struggling with access to adequate healthcare. With a desire to become a Pediatrician, I became involved with the AAP and attended Advocacy Day yearly and the AAP Legislative Conference to learn skills to advocate for our most vulnerable patient populations. Throughout my residency at the Children's Hospital at Montefiore in The Bronx, NY, I worked with our community to bring awareness to programs to help bridge health inequity gaps and started to perform research in both Social Determinants of Health as well as ECMO. I quickly saw a relationship between healthcare disparities and patients at the extremes of medical illness. As a budding intensivist, my research interest is to combine these two areas to understand how social determinants of health shape access to care, ECMO utilization, and outcomes in the ICU setting. 

Health Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests: My interest in health, equity, advocacy and policy stems from work in global health as an undergraduate and seeing the effect that social determinants can have on the overall health of a community. I am enthusiastic about slowing the progression of climate change and combatting the unequal impact climate change has on lower income communities. Additionally, I'm interested in policy around healthy equity as it pertains chronic disease. I look forward to building relationships with my local community and using my role as a physician to help at both the individual and population level. 

Health Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests: In the field of medicine we are motivated by making a positive difference in individuals’ lives. However by working at a societal level we have the opportunity to touch the lives of millions. As a pediatric endocrinology fellow, my interests revolve around preventative health and access to care, especially preventing obesity, addressing rising costs of medications, and providing transgender care. My goal is to change health policy by educating politicians about the issues that our patients face every day and connect them to the personal stories of their constituents.

Health Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests: I became interested in health advocacy and policy after seeing how fundamentally inadequate both our healthcare and social systems are at meeting patients’ basic needs. Both advocacy and policy work provide an avenue to go beyond treating an individual patient to ensure that services such as healthcare are not rationed by one’s ability to pay for them. My interests lie at the intersection of the human rights and public health crises perpetuated by American policing and carceral systems. More specifically, how healthcare workers can aide in offering human centered, preventative focused, and equitably designed alternatives to improve individual and collective health outcomes.

Health Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests: I have a few current interests in health equity, advocacy and policy. One of these interests include patient advocacy through health policy. I would like to eventually hold administrative positions that govern public health operations. I am also excited about understanding the resources available in the community and getting my patients connected to the help they need. Particularly in the field of neurology, this is much needed given the specialized nature of the field. Ultimately, I hope to serve as a bridge for the community to optimal neurology-focused health.

Health Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests: My interests in health equity, advocacy and policy include improving access to care, translational medicine and identification and prevention of new and emerging healthcare challenges in light of climate change and a rapidly developing world. These interests developed over my time serving as a public health volunteer in Peace Corps Mongolia, and during Med school working with community partners in homeless and crisis centers in New Orleans. I am especially excited to work with the fellow HEAP track residents, and local partners here in Atlanta to ensure the solutions we come up with to our current challenges are distributed equitably to all people and not just those most fortunate.

Health Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests: I am a general surgery resident and am interested in disparities in cancer care and outcomes in underserved patients. I am specifically interested in advocacy and policy to eliminate barriers to screening and surveillance for cancers in which early detection of primary or recurrent cancers allows for surgical intervention and improved survival.

Health Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests: My passion for advocacy and policy-making in the healthcare field comes from my desire to improve the health and wellbeing of women form all walks of life. Specific issues I hope to address and work to modify through this work include: the racial gap in maternal morbidity and mortality, adolescent sexual health and education, and reproductive justice. My goal is to improve my own knowledge in these fields and better advocate for my patients in this way. In the future, I plan to work on creating policies and legislation that will promote the health of women in greater Atlanta and Georgia in general.

Health Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interest: I believe access to healthcare should be available to everyone in order to prevent illness as well to treat ongoing chronic conditions. I’ve had a multitude of encounters with various patients from underserved areas during my residency training. I was able to see how low health literacy, financial barriers, and the lack of trust that is present in the healthcare system amongst various cultural communities often leads to poor health related outcomes. The COVID 19 global pandemic further open my eyes to these issues. My overall goal will not only be to educate on how these issues develop, but to create realistic plans to help solve them.

Health Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interest: I am pursuing a career in Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility given my strong interest in reproductive science and investigation. Despite all of the incredible advances in the treatment and management of infertility, access to these services remains limited.  I would like to be a part of the HEAP track to continue to build on my understanding of the social determinants of health, health equity and policy and address these issues through gained skills in advocacy at the local, state, and national levels with the goal of improving access to fertility services to all patients who need them.

Health Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests: Healthcare experiences and delivery vary across groups of individuals for several different reasons. As a Pulmonary and Critical Care fellow I have experienced the impact of health disparities on the prevention and management of both chronic diseases and acute critical illness. I am particularly interested in outcome differences for common ICU admissions and the disproportionate burden of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease based on race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and healthcare access. I hope to gain better knowledge to advocate for my patients from both an individual and policy perspective; and develop suitable interventions to lessen the burden of disparities in pulmonary and critical care medicine. 

Health Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests: I have several advocacy interests which have motivated me to pursue this track. I believe in preserving women's access to family planning with an emphasis on respecting each patient's wishes. I think it is critical that we protect patients' access to physicians, particularly for patients living in underserved and rural areas to have access to their primary care physician in a timely manner. In this same vein, I actively support efforts to expand GME and to increase the number of residency positions available for primary care training. We can combat the ever-rising cost of health care by re-focusing on preventative care and early interventions. Throughout medical school I advocated for legislation that increased the availability of harm reduction services to patients with substance use disorder. Through my experiences, I learned that it often takes years of advocacy to create policy that grants patients what they need. In the case of harm reduction strategies, we had to change state laws to allow us to give patients what they needed. Policy, whether legal or institutional, is not inherently good. It must be approached by those who recognize areas for improvement and have the energy and voice to implement change, often on behalf of those who have no voice. Physicians are uniquely placed to speak for those who have no one else to stand for them.

Health Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests: My interest in the track is rooted in my desire to help the most vulnerable, many of whom are suffering from mental illness. As a psychiatry resident, I am interested in increasing access to mental health services in underserved communities. With my interest in child and adolescent psychiatry, I am also passionate about improving access to mental health and counseling services in schools, especially with the rise in school shootings and stress surrounding COVID-19. I hope to transform the knowledge gained from the track’s curriculum into future advocacy and policy-making on an individual and system-wide level.  

Health Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests: My specific interests in advocacy and policy are focused on race as a social determinant of health, LGBTQ health, and reproductive justice. I am also interested in addressing the inequities in health access, education, outreach and utilization which disproportionately impact Black, indigenous, and people of color on a policy level. I look forward to collaborating with like-minded people from across the medical spectrum in working to establish systems and structures that will enable more equitable healthcare for my patients and their families. 

Health Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests: My current interests include understanding the racial and geographic disparities in neonatal health outcomes and infant mortality in the United States. I am currently working on 2 major projects. First, I am examining the racial and geographic disparities in infant mortality due to NEC in the United States. Second, I am examining how maternal neighborhood affects infant mortality rates and how this changes over time. I am excited to address these disparities and advocate for our most vulnerable infants.  

Health Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests: I have had the privilege of serving as a Physician Member on the Baylor Scott & White (BSW) Population Health Task Force Committee during my internal medicine residency. We formulated health equity goals for the BSW Health Central Texas region to lower the disease burden of major chronic diseases (e.g., type 2 diabetes and hypertension), and we developed and implemented policies for increasing colorectal cancer screening through non-invasive methods such as fecal immunochemical testing (FIT) kits. I have been an active member of the Texas Medical Association (TMA) in which I served 1) as a delegate to the Patient-Physician Advocacy Committee where we developed policies to counter the opioid epidemic via the Texas Prescription Monitoring Program (PMP) and 2) as a delegate to the Council on Health Promotions on which we advocated for the benefits of both childhood and adult vaccinations. I also participated in the American College of Physicians (ACP) Leadership Services Days on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. where we advocated for legislation to increase federal funding for Graduate Medical Education (GME) in order to generate additional residency positions to subsequently alleviate the nation’s physician shortage. We additionally advocated for legislation to lower the high cost of selected prescription medications (e.g., insulin and novel anticoagulants) for the underserved community.

Health Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests: My prior experience as a Peace Corps Community Health Volunteer in Dominican Republic was influential in nourishing my passion to learn about social determinants of health and create sustainable solutions to address them. In addition to continuing to serve in impoverished communities internationally and domestically as a medical student, I chose to learn more about health policies and systems by participating in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Certificate program. As an Internal Medicine Resident at Emory, I have the privilege to learn from and serve patients who often have complicated social situations and complex medical problems at Grady and through my primary care clinic in the International Medical Center. These experiences, combined with the manifestation of health disparities, I have observed in my own family and community contribute to my current passion to advocate for equitable access to health education and quality health care for persons of color and those of lower socioeconomic statuses. I look forward to learning from colleagues and faculty in the HEAP track about how physicians can create sustainable solutions to address these inequities at health system and policy levels. 

Health Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests: My current interests in advocacy have been inspired by my experience as an immigrant in this country which compelled me to find my own voice so I could help others in similar situations. I am passionate about creating sustainable systemic change to better impact the lives of my pediatric patients – some of the most vulnerable and voiceless in our community. My specific interests include immigration reform (specifically for undocumented youth), gun safety, adverse childhood experiences/toxic stress, and expanding access to mental healthcare for teens. 

Health, Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests: I am a neonatology fellow at Emory University and am invested in achieving the best possible outcomes for both my patients and their families. Specifically I am interested in advocating for legislation and policy that puts children first. I am also interested in parent education so that they can become the ultimate advocates for their children.  

Health, Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests: My current interests in health equity, advocacy and policy are centered around social determinants of health, access to quality compassionate care for patients of underserved backgrounds, and the implications/outcomes of implicit racial biases on patient care and doctor-patient relationships. I also have interests in adverse childhood experiences, and youth empowerment. Lastly, I have been intricately involved in many initiatives/programs centered around increasing the number of under represented minorities in medicine. I believe it is of great importance that we continue to advocate for our patients, and broaden that focus to empower our patients to advocate for themselves.  

Health, Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests: As a pediatric emergency medicine fellow, I see first hand how policies impact children's health and lives. My current interests include improving access to adolescent healthcare and contraception in the pediatric emergency department to decrease teen pregnancy, and advocating for firearm safety in the home to prevent accidental child shootings.

Health, Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests: My experiences during obstetrics and gynecology residency have taught me that maternal health care outcomes involve much more than the actual care provided within the hospital (or clinic) setting. I am specifically interested in health care disparities surrounding pregnancy related morbidity and mortality. I hope to gain more insight into the root causes of these disparities in order to develop population-based solutions.

Health, Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests: Being born in India and moving to a different city/country every couple of years growing up allowed me early exposure to various determinants of health. I gathered firsthand how healthcare outcomes change based on circumstances - when I was unable to access clean water during a cholera outbreak in my paternal village, and went to receiving free dental care as a visitor in Taiwan within the space of a few months. Currently pursuing my residency in Pediatrics, my interest in applying for the HEAP track stems from a desire to advocate effectively for my patients, who are vulnerable and depend on others to ensure their well being. Working with children has instilled in me the desire to identify barriers to care, and my experiences have given me the drive to work within communities and affect sustainable change, locally as well as globally.
 

Health, Equity, Advocacy, and Policy Interests: I am a second-year resident physician in the J. Willis Hurst Internal Medicine Residency Program at Emory. Prior to this, I worked in genetics research but decided to broaden my focus when I began to see the ways that research, clinical medicine, and advocacy could be combined in service of the fight for social justice. During medical school, I became deeply involved in advocacy efforts focusing on expanding Medicaid, moving towards a single payer healthcare system, making medications affordable through global access licensing, and fighting discrimination within both the healthcare and medical education systems. I believe that joining together with our colleagues and patients to fight the obvious root causes - unequal access to medical care, worsening income inequality, discrimination - that impact our patients' health and well-being is a core tenet of what it means to be a physician.