The Frist Global Health Leaders (FGHL) program affords young health professional students, residents, and fellows the opportunity to serve and train abroad in underserved communities for up to one semester. In doing so, they will bolster capacity in clinics in need of support as well as offer training to community health workers to promote sustainability upon their departure from these communities. As part of the program, they blog about their experiences here. For more information, visit our program page.
| Jamie Cirbus is a Global Health Emergency Medicine fellow at Vanderbilt Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee. She completed her Emergency Medicine residency at Vanderbilt University Medical Center as well. Jamie is originally from Western New York. She graduated from Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC and completed medical school at SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, NY. Jamie loves to travel and learn about other cultures. She greatly enjoyed studying abroad during undergrad. Jamie is looking forward to working alongside the residents at Georgetown Public Hospital in Georgetown, Guyana. She will be providing medical care, helping with resident education through bedside teaching and formal didactics, and working on her fellowship research project. |
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| Natasha Marie Corbitt grew up in America's playground -- Atlantic City, New Jersey. She lived in Philadelphia after college working on DNA vaccine development for HIV and HPV at the University of Pennsylvania. She is an alumna of the Medical Scientist Training Program earning an MD/PhD at the University of Pittsburgh where she completed her thesis work in liver immunology at the Transplantation Institute. She is currently completing her general surgery residency training at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and plans to pursue pediatric surgery fellowship training. As an aspiring pediatric surgeon scientist, her clinical interests include congenital anomalies of the hepatobiliary system and liver disease. As the product of teenage parents, she believes that every child should have the opportunity to reach their full potential. She hopes to make an impact on the treatment of hepatobiliary disease in children with a commitment to surgery, research, and teaching. Outside of the hospital, she has traveled to Rome, Paris, Nice, Monaco, Nicaragua, Canada, Mexico, and Germany. She is ecstatic about traveling to Kijabe, Kenya, where she will have the opportunity to embrace new learning and cultural experiences. | |
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Jeremy Gerber is a Physician Assistant (PA) student at Trevecca Nazarene University in Nashville, TN. His interest for international outreach began in 2012 when he served with a mission team to a deaf school in Kingston, Jamaica, and then worked as a summer intern at a deaf school in Reynosa, Mexico. An opportunity to pair medicine with missions came in 2015, when Jeremy was part of a medical team sent to Nicaragua. These opportunities to provide care to the underserved while overcoming language and cultural barriers gave Jeremy a passion to obtain medical training as a PA so that he could be better equipped to care for the needy. He gained further experience as a nursing assistant and a medical scribe while completing his undergraduate degree in Biology from Bradley University in Peoria, IL. His goal is to engage with the immigrant and refugee populations in Nashville and to work in short- and long-term medical missions abroad. He will serve as a Frist Global Health Leader at Siloam Health in Nashville, TN. |
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Caleb Huber is a fourth-year medical student and plans to match to a residency that combines training in Internal Medicine and Pediatrics (Med-Peds). Caleb grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana and is the oldest of six children. After graduating from high school, he attended Vanderbilt University where he studied Biomedical Engineering. During his time at Vanderbilt, he was a student leader in the Nashville Navigators and a member of the Vanderbilt Running Club. At the recommendation of a friend, Sudeep Das, he also began volunteering at Siloam Health, a clinic for the underserved refugee and immigrant populations in Nashville, TN. He had the privilege of participating in and, the following year, co-facilitating Siloam’s Community Health Immersion program. He returned to Indianapolis to attend Indiana University School of Medicine. He is an active member in his church, Church for the Nations, on the north side of Indianapolis. |
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Jennifer Lynn Neczypor, CNM, MSN, is originally from California and graduated from Vanderbilt University School of Nursing with a dual specialty in certified nurse-midwifery and family practice nursing. While at Vanderbilt, she served as the chairperson of the 2015-2016 Global Health Case Competition case-writing committee and also sat on the VIGH Student Advisory Council. As a recipient of the Nichols Humanitarian Fund Grant, she returned to her Peace Corps country of Vanuatu to provide nursing, family planning, and malaria prevention services in the aftermath of a devastating cyclone, and as a participant in Project Pyramid, she worked with the women of the Sibimbe sewing cooperative in rural Ecuador. Throughout her nurse-midwifery clinical rotations, she had the opportunity to explore the many implications of global health inequities for marginalized populations in the United States, including undocumented Spanish-speaking women in Nashville and Chicago, adolescent mothers, refugee women, and Saudi Arabian college students in rural Idaho. As a recipient of both the Frist Global Health Leaders Program grant and the American College of Nurse-Midwives (ACNM) Jeanne Raisler International Award for Midwifery, she is currently working in Dhulikhel, Nepal, where she is partnering with the maternal-fetal health organization One Heart Worldwide to train skilled birth attendants and student nurse-midwives. Jennifer’s long-term career goals include working as a nurse-midwife for Doctors Without Borders, developing effective, midwife-led solutions to the problem of malaria in pregnancy, and establishing a birth center in Vanuatu that integrates traditional birth customs, woman-centered care, and evidence-based practice. She hopes to work with underserved immigrant and refugee women upon returning to the United States to practice midwifery. |
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Kim Pruett is originally from Albuquerque, New Mexico. She finished medical school after serving for six years in the US Air Force. She is currently a senior emergency medicine resident at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, TN. Her interests include global health, rural medicine and EMS. She likes to spend her free time hiking, playing with her dog or reading. |
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Jamie Robinson is a general surgery resident at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. She is from Hartwell, GA, and received her BS degree in Genetics at the University of Georgia. She completed her MD degree at Vanderbilt and is now completing her surgery residency. During her residency, she completed her Master’s degree in Biomedical Informatics at Vanderbilt as well and is currently pursuing further research and a Ph.D. Her research is focused on the integration of genetic health information into clinical practice, disease sub-typing and outcomes based upon genetic predictors, and the implementation of health information systems technology into healthcare environments. She plans on pursuing a fellowship and career in academic pediatric surgery. Her husband, a vascular surgeon in Franklin, TN, is joining her on her journey to Kijabe, Kenya. They are excited to contribute to the care of patients at Kijabe Hospital and look forward to the opportunity for new cultural experiences and knowledge in June 2017. |
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Cameron Schlegel is a general surgery resident at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. She is from Salt Lake City Utah, and received her BS/BA degree in Biology/Chemistry at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. She completed her MD degree at Vanderbilt, where she spent time conducting pediatric oncology and vaccine related research. She elected to stay in Nashville and pursue her general surgery training at Vanderbilt, and is currently conducting lab research in pediatric intestinal diseases, as well as clinical research on pancreatic cancer and peritoneal carcinomatosis. During her residency, she has become particularly interested in surgical education, and leads a year-long teaching course for the intern class. Her and her husband, also a physician, are excited to have the opportunity to travel to Kijabe, Kenya together, and look forward to teaching and learning from such an incredible place. |
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Ryan Van Nostrand is an Emergency Medicine Resident at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee. His interest in emergency medicine stems from a desire to work in a fast paced environment which has a wide breadth of patients. He enjoys teaching and learning with his colleagues. In his free time, he spends a lot of time outdoors, hiking and fishing. Ryan is looking forward to working in Guyana and hopes to gain new insight into an emerging hospital with limited resources. Ryan plans to bring his experiences from Vanderbilt to the staff and is eager to learn about the endemic disease burden and unique difficulties Guyana brings. |