Residents, Year One

Jeff was born in Atlanta, GA where he grew up eating spaghetti, playing soccer, and dreaming of being a doctor. As a student at Vanderbilt University, he developed a taste for service during a one week Alternative Spring Break working with the Nashville homeless. Jeff graduated with a BS in Biology and a minor in Spanish. He was then invited to join the Peace Corps in Ghana in the Water and Sanitation and Hygiene Education sector, where he worked to provide safe water and HIV/AIDS education to Gomoa Asempanyin, a rural subsistence farming community in the Central Region of Ghana.

After Peace Corps, Jeff started public health school at George Washington University, and then transferred to Tulane to finish up a MPH in international health and development. He then began medical school at Tulane, where his interest in preventive medicine and working with the underserved led him to family medicine. Impressed by the strong academics, the general vibe from the residents he met there, and the coolness of Portland, Jeff felt OHSU was the perfect match for him. He is excited to move to Portland, but more excited for his fiancé, Kate, to move there in September.

Leslie grew up in the bustling town of Tulsa, OK and as much as she loved Tulsa and her family, she was ready to move away for college. Leslie did her undergraduate work in St. Louis where she majored in Spanish. She did not decide to go to medical school until late in her education and therefore ended up taking a year off, which she spent studying late onset Alzheimer’s disease at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD. Leslie decided to stay on the East coast for medical school and made the easy move to Philadelphia where she continued her education at Jefferson Medical College. Although she was not set on any one specialty going in, Leslie easily decided on family medicine after spending some time with the team and rotating on the inpatient service. Leslie immediately noted and appreciated the differences in their ability to always address all aspects of patient care while taking care of the acute issue. Leslie also met some amazing friends at Jefferson which made her decision to leave difficult, but Leslie was drawn to the quality and broad spectrum of training at OHSU.

Although not looking forward to the more difficult move from coast to coast, Leslie is eager to experience life in the Northwest and see how the practice of family medicine differs. Not to mention that the West coast is one of the few areas of the country she has yet to live (she also spent a year of undergrad in Arizona). Leslie looks forward to experiencing the slower pace and friendly atmosphere of Portland as well as trying out all those microbrews she keep hearing about!

Leslie’s interests in family medicine include preventive care, geriatrics, and women’s health, and she also hopes to have the opportunity to utilize her Spanish language skills and participate in international health aid in the future.

Samuel was born and raised in sunny St. Petersburg, Florida. In 1993, he ventured off to the University of Florida, for undergrad where he majored in Health Science Education. For all fellow Gator fans out there, “It’s great to be a Florida Gator!”… His next stop was graduate school at Tulane University School of Public Health where his focus was International Health Development. Tulane and New Orleans were an amazing place to earn his MPH, where the wild ride was just beginning. After graduate school he joined the U.S. Peace Corps as a Water and Sanitation Volunteer in El Salvador, traversed the jungles and mountains of Chiapas, Mexico with traditional healers , worked on infectious disease outbreaks and surveillance as a Florida Department of Health Epidemiologist, and trained Migrant Farm workers to be “promoteres de salud” on the edge of the Florida Everglades. As a National Health Service Scholar, Sam’s time spent at the University of South Florida, College of Medicine fostered a strong commitment to pursue a career in underserved medicine while solidifying his passion for human rights. “I am excited about my appointment to OHSU and their proven dedication to both medical excellence and the medically underserved”.

Patty was born and raised in Mississippi, finished high school in New Jersey, attended college in Florida, and migrated to Portland after cycling through Europe. Soon after returning, she met her beloved-to-be Jeff, whom she convinced to leave Chicago to join her in Portland. Her interests in medicine include access to care for the underserved, family planning and reproductive health care, integrative healing modalities and the care of children. Activities outside of medicine she enjoys involve marveling at her tremendous daughter, gardening, doing it herself and thrifting.

Josh was born in Minnesota but lived in Redmond, Oregon until he was seven. His sister Rachel was born in Oregon and never fails to rub it in. After a wholesome mid-western upbringing, he went to Oberlin college, where he studied English and history and worked very hard to avoid the hard sciences. After graduation he lived in Kumagaya, Japan for two years, teaching English and traveling. Once back in the States, he worked a year as a junior high school teacher and another year in a gray little cube at General Mills before succumbing to medicine's irresistable pull. He did a post-bac year at Bryn Mawr and then matriculated to Brown, where he spent four years getting laughed at for saying pop instead of soda. Once an avid canoer and hiker, he is extremely excited to live in a state with mountains. Other hobbies include ju-jitsu, pool, and the accoustic guitar. He is pretty good at one of these things and bad at the other two. He is thrilled to be practicing family medicine, and thrilled to be living in Portland.

Nicole grew up in Honolulu enjoying the beach going weekends of her childhood. She moved to Eugene, OR at the age of 16 and spent most of high school pursuing her avid volleyball training hallmarked by two state championships. Following graduation, she attended the University of Portland where she majored in biology with minors in chemistry and business administration. Trading in her knee pads for books, she shifted her love of physical activity to a formal training as a certified STOTT Pilates instructor and did research in muscle physiology. Growing up with physical therapists as parents, Nicole was exposed from an early age to the benefits of manipulative medicine and decided to pursue this interest by making the cross country and cross cultural leap into the little hillbilly town of Pikeville, KY to attend the Pikeville College of Osteopathic Medicine. During her medical education, she spent extra time volunteering in walk-in manipulation clinics and providing sideline care for the college’s athletic teams.

Nicole has a special interest in integrative medicine and incorporating manipulative treatment into holistic diagnosis and management. She is thrilled about the multidisciplinary approach and opportunities ahead at OHSU. She is excited about making the trek back to Portland and getting her wetsuit out of storage for a much needed trip to Cannon Beach. In her free time she loves swimming, reading, journaling, boogie boarding, cooking, Pilates and gyrokinesis, hiking, and spending time with her family. She has two little Papillon puppies, Mana and Pua, who are equally excited for walks in and around Portland.

Liz grew up in Helena, Montana with her parents and little sister enjoying family vacations and boating on the Missouri River. Liz and her friends spent most of their time playing basketball, camping, and hanging out at the lake. As a junior in high school Liz watched The Big Lebowski for the first time, but was somewhat "out of her element" and didn't fully appreciate the movie. Sensing that she needed to expand her horizons Liz moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin for college where she rowed on the crew team and watched Marquette go to the Final Four her senior year.

Liz formed close friendships, and after dozens of viewings, learned to love The Big Lebowski. Inspired by the Little Lebowski Urban Achievers and her time at Marquette, Liz joined Amate House for a year of volunteer work with 12 other post-grads in Chicago. Liz worked as an HIV/AIDS case manager at a free clinic where she worked to empower her patients by participating in a protest of a drug company with outrageous prices and doing outreach and education as a host of a live call-in television show about HIV/AIDS.

Liz then packed up for med school at OHSU and was relieved to find that her classmates were not only inspiring and interesting, but several also shared my affection for The Big L. While at times she felt a little "undude," Liz enjoyed her 4 years making great friends and continued involvement with HIV/AIDS education and increasing access to healthcare.

Liz is excited to continue her medical journey at OHSU and look forward to working with strong residents and faculty. Liz hopes to expand on her family medicine interests including palliative care, adolescent health, and healthcare advocacy - and to be, as Maude would say "a very good doctor, and thorough."

Christine grew up in the Bahamas, and although she has not lived in the Islands for quite some time now, she still tend to think of them as home. After high school in Nassau, Christine joined her sisters at Georgetown University in Washington D.C., where she completed undergraduate degrees in Fine Arts and Economics. With college under her belt, Christine followed her dreams to Broadway in New York City to study architecture at Columbia University, one of the most exciting architectural environments in the world. After some years in architectural practice, Christine knew she needed to pursue a professional life that would allow her to work more closely with people. Christine wanted to relate to others as a teacher in a way that would foster changes in individual lifestyle choices and lead to a better social fabric at the community level.

Christine feels lucky to have studied medicine at Meharry Medical College, a historically black university in Nashville, Tennessee, where there has been a focus on service and community–based medicine since it’s inception in 1876. Along the way, Christine has been fortunate to travel and live abroad, both of which have played no small part in her passion for diversity and thirst for knowledge. If it were not for the unconditional love and support of her family and friends, and her husband, Sam, Christine would not be an OHSU PGY1 Family Medicine resident today. Christine says the poet, Shel Silverstein, put it best – “anything can happen, child, anything can be!”

Mellisa grew up in a small town of East Haddam, Connecticut, situated on the Connecticut River and known for its beautiful state parks. She spent most of her free time enjoying nature and outdoor activities such as hiking, running, and tennis with her parents, brother and sister, dog, and friends. She attended the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, where she developed continued hobbies in long distance road racing, cooking and entertaining, and international travel. She spent much time exploring Lake Matoaka, the second oldest man-made lake in Virginia, and its surrounding forest, collecting data on plants, salamanders, and water quality for ecological research. She graduated with a B.S. in Biology and a minor in Classical Studies. During college and shortly thereafter, Mellisa had the opportunity to bond with high school students in Haiti, travel to Italy, Switzerland, and France to visit friends and family, and spend time with friends in Jamaica and Scotland.

Mellisa returned to Connecticut at the University of Connecticut for medical school. In her first year, she attended AMSA’s Complementary and Alternative Medicine Leadership Training Program. Through this training, she implemented a self care retreat entitled “Your First Patient” for first year medical students at UConn. She also enjoyed organizing orientation, class parties and events, and a charity ball as the social chairman for the medical student government. Mellisa enjoyed watching the development of clinical reasoning among first year medical students as a student instructor of “Principles of Clinical Medicine”. She continued her interest in research by collecting and analyzing data on racial disparities among breast cancer patients in Connecticut during her fourth year of medical school.

Ben grew up on Chicago's north side and despite a love for the Midwest always had the urge to see the rest of the country. After high school he headed out to New York City where he studied Psychology at New York University. It was around this time while working with the city's homeless that he began to question whether this population had such clear health problems because they were poor, or if they were poor because the suffered from chronic disease. After college Ben remained in New York where he first worked for the Red Cross and then later spent three years researching learning and memory before returning to the Midwest to attend Rush University Medical College.

Ben never forgot the health care inequities he was exposed to in New York and it wasn't long before he became involved with AMSA, the American Medical Student Association first as the Rush chapter president and head of the health policy action committee and later as a trustee on the National Board. Throughout his medical school career he continued to educate, organize and lobby, working both locally and nationally towards the goal of achieving high quality affordable health care to everyone in the United States.

Ben is excited to be starting at OHSU and looking forward to exploring Oregon. Despite living most of his life in big cities Ben also loves to get out in the woods and can't wait to go skiing, snow shoeing, snowboarding and more on Mount Hood. His family is sad that he has moved out west but his bikes aren't.

After 25 years in New England, Becca headed west to begin medical school. All clichés aside about life being a journey rather than a destination, she arrived at Stanford 7541 miles later, having swum in Lake Superior, forded the mighty Mississippi at its (diminutive) source in Minnesota, stargazed in the Badlands of South Dakota, and spent a birthday watching thunderstorms roll across the orange hoodoos of Bryce Canyon in Utah. Her journey to medicine took a similarly scenic route. As an anthropology major at Harvard, she aspired to be an archaeologist, taught elementary school art, and conducted botany research for the Forest Service in Alaska. Her role as president of the Outing Club suddenly redirected her career path during junior year when a first responder course, taken purely out of obligation as a trip leader, surprised her by being so compelling. After college, she enrolled in night school premedical courses and spent her days teaching wilderness medicine and serving as an editorial assistant at New England Journal of Medicine.

During medical school, she was repeatedly drawn toward children and families facing complex medical and developmental issues. A pediatric oncology research project inspired by her experiences at medical camps and undertaken during intern year sparked her passion for epidemiology, which she pursued with a residency in Public Health and Preventive Medicine. After a chief resident year at OHSU PHPM, she joined the Department of Family Medicine to continue her work in environmental and population health. Exposure to colleagues who balance research, teaching, and clinical pursuits, along with recent personal and family experiences on the patient side of the continuum, drew her back toward clinical medicine. She particularly hopes to use her time in residency to gain more skills in women’s and children’s health, integrative medicine, nutrition, and palliative care.

Becca and her husband Ian—who first met in a wilderness medicine course, and again the next day in a windsurfing class—had been seeking an excuse to relocate to the Pacific Northwest for a long time. They love wandering through green spaces and secret neighborhood staircases and will never exhaust the opportunities for backpacking, canoeing, skiing, and scuba diving that this beautiful part of the world has to offer. They hope to make Portland their home for a very long time, and Becca is honored to be joining this talented group of residents in such a collegial program.