Identifying inequities in lung transplantation: a call for strategies and future research

My passion is for leveraging health care data and innovative technologies to advancing excellence and equity in health care. I dually-enrolled in both a Bachelor's and Master's program in public health at the University of Georgia studying epidemiology and then continued my training at Emory's school of medicine and UT Southwestern's internal medicine residency. Now, I am enrolled as a research fellow in Duke's division of pulmonary and critical care, where I have the opportunity to advance my research career as well as become an expert clinician in pulmonary medicine. I am proud to bring my passion for excellence and equity in care to both my research and my clinical practice.

I am an abdominal transplant surgeon with a health services research lab focused on understanding how complex health care processes and large multidisciplinary teams affect outcomes of high cost, high acuity patients.  I have a master's degree in health services and outcomes research methodology with supplemental training in health disparities research methods, engineering methods for healthcare system and process assessment, organizational behavior theory and change management, and implementation science.

As my research has progressed, an emerging theme has been the interplay between biologic and social risk, which each contribute to a patient’s ultimate success but receive disproportionate consideration in anticipation of and in response to subpar outcomes. I am currently involved in several efforts that build on this concept and employ an approach to health equity research that accounts for center and organizational-level characteristics when examining differences in care based on social determinants of health. 

Advanced lung disease, lung transplantation, interstitial lung disease, immune monitoring