About Me
Jackie grew up in rural south Texas on a cattle ranch and moved to the suburbs of Washington, D.C. for her final years of high school. She completed a degree in psychology and biology at the University of Georgia. After graduating, Jackie’s job managing an ophthalmology research lab at the Medical College of Georgia relocated her to Salt Lake City where she fell in love with the great outdoors. In Utah she learned to ski and mountain bike and adopted her first dog while working at the Moran Eye Center developing novel ocular drug delivery devices and researching the cellular biology of corneal blindness. When she wasn’t busy at work or playing outside, she found purpose in volunteering as a medical assistant at a free clinic in Park City. Jackie’s path led her to medical school at the University of Utah where she continued her passion to provide healthcare for the underserved by leading a student-run free clinic in Salt Lake City. Jackie, her partner, and a growing family of dogs and cats moved across the country for residency training in Emergency Medicine at Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte, NC. She completed her training with a certificate in global emergency medicine, having completed clinical and research training in the Emergency Medical Department at Muhimbili National Hospital in Dar es Saalam, Tanzania. After residency Jackie worked in a busy emergency department in Everett, Washington. Jackie’s heart has always been in Utah and she was overjoyed when she and her husband accepted positions with the Indian Health Service, allowing them to split their time between Salt Lake City and the Navajo and Hopi Nations in New Mexico and Arizona as emergency medicine physicians. In the ER, Jackie found personal and professional growth in providing patient centered care in the face of serious illness. As COVID-19 swept through the Navajo Nation, Jackie witnessed firsthand how vital the skills of hospice and palliative care were in the ER. These experiences reinforced her desire to pursue specialty training in Hospice and Palliative Care. Her goals in fellowship are to explore the Native American experience with Hospice and Palliative Care, develop culturally appropriate communication skills, and empower emergency medicine providers to integrate these skills into their practice. Jackie’s passions outside of work include spending time with family, wrangling her house full of animals, listening to NPR, playing outdoors in the Wasatch mountains, and dreaming of surf vacations and travel abroad.
