Andrea received her undergraduate degree in Neuroscience from Texas Christian University in 2015. She attended McGovern Medical School at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and graduated in 2019. In 2022, she completed an Emergency Medicine residency at Baylor Scott & White Health in Temple, TX. She spends most of her free time with her partner, family and friends playing board and tabletop games, watching nonsense television and enjoying each other’s company.
Katie was born in raised in Nebraska, where she also attended the University of Nebraska-Lincoln for her undergraduate education and then attended the University of Nebraska Medical Center for medical school. Through volunteering during these early experiences, she discovered a passion for hospice as well as for the care of children and adolescents. She was able to combine her interests with a residency in Internal Medicine and Pediatrics and was thrilled to match to the University of Utah med-peds program. She was drawn to the culture and energy of the program and hospital systems, with focus on providing excellent patient care, work-life balance and compassion for our patients and each other. During residency Katie discovered an often unmet need for many patients- support through the transition from pediatric care to adult care for patients with chronic diseases of childhood. This area has grown into a career focus that encompasses many of her favorite parts of medicine and makes good use of her med-peds training and current training. Palliative and hospice medicine has remained a focus throughout this journey, with most patients and families with such conditions benefitting from pain and symptom management, care coordination and longitudinal supportive relationships, and end of life care appropriate for their specific needs. There is also potential for a great deal of innovation and collaboration with adult providers as more and more people with chronic conditions are experiencing longer life expectancies, which challenge our knowledge of disease processes and ability to support quality of life, and require knowledge and skills not routinely taught to categorically adult trained providers. Katie was the inaugural fellow in the Baylor Transition Medicine Clinic - Developmental Medicine fellowship in Houston, TX where she spent the year working with experienced providers in providing primary care for adults with chronic diseases of childhood, learning from various subspecialists in adult and pediatric medicine, and gaining experience with community resources and social supports for these patients. She is thrilled to be returning to SLC as a Hospice and Palliative Medicine fellow to continue expanding her knowledge and skills. She hopes to work in pediatric and adult general medicine and palliative care with a focus in transition-aged patients with medical complexity and intellectual disability.
Lauren grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico in the high desert and moved to the bay area where she studied biology and public health in college at Santa Clara University. She spent 5 years after college in San Francisco working in public health, doing research at UCSF and helping start a health tech company. She returned to New Mexico and attended medical school at University of New Mexico. There, she found her passion for general surgery but also felt pulled toward Family Medicine because of the long-term patient relationships, holistic view of treating disease and possibility of getting to know patients on a deeper level. When she found a mentor who was a Surgical Oncologist also boarded in Hospice & Palliative Care, it became clear that she could pursue her love of surgery while also fostering her other passions in medicine. She matched into general surgery residency at University of Utah and has completed 3 years of surgery training. She is now doing the HPM fellowship during one of her professional developments (research) years and will complete her surgical training after the fellowship. During fellowship, she hopes to develop communication skills that are critical to but often underutilized during surgical care with a focus on culturally appropriate use of palliative care with Native American populations. She plans to have both a surgical and a palliative care practice serving rural and underserved populations and to incorporate palliative care into her surgical practice with a focus on shared decision making with surgical patients.
Lauren’s passions outside of work include spending time with her partner and their two dogs in nature, trail running, gardening, biking to breweries and cooking (the NY Times Cooking App is her lifeline).
Dominic grew up in St. Louis, MO as the second oldest of six children. He went across the state to Kansas City, MO where he completed his B.A./M.D. degree at the University of Missouri – Kansas City. After returning to St. Louis for his pediatric residency at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, he developed an interest in pediatric palliative care while caring for patients and their families as they navigated the medical system. Making his way out of the Midwest, he looks forward to joining the rest of the palliative care team at the University of Utah and growing to develop the skills that can help illness become a less unpleasant part of life. He enjoys cooking, hiking, and occasionally fixing things that broke during prior attempts at amateur automotive work.