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Biography

I attended Garfield High School after my family moved to Seattle in the 1970s, and was fortunate to work at the UW Health Sciences through a work training program. Later, as a lab technician, I worked in the Virology Division when HIV was in its early stages in America, and was honored to work with some very bright clinical researchers. I entered the MEDEX program because the school’s mission was in alignment with my own core values, and graduated with MEDEX Class 25 (class president) in 1993. My training and work history includes both rural and urban communities in Washington state. Since 1996, I have been a member of the MEDEX faculty have maintained a practice at the University of Washington Family Practice Residency. After earning an Executive Master of Public Administration degree in 2011, I then became the Program Director for the entry-level MEDEX PA program.
I grew up during a time of segregation in the midst of the civil rights movement, and I remember the struggle for equality in my community. As a young person growing up in rural East Texas in the 1960s, I was moved by my environment where I witnessed the poor health outcomes in my community that had real impacts on day-to-day well-being. Fast forward, in 2007, I was elected to the City Council in Shoreline WA. In this position, I was able to successfully advocate for funding to support vulnerable populations in our community, including a “Healthy City” strategy to ensure the community’s access to much-needed human services. In my youth, I was profoundly impacted by the nonviolent civil rights struggle, and the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. As a result, my personal mission has been one of love and service: I’ve loved my fellow human being enough to care, and cared enough to act in service to others.