Additional Trainee Profiles
Additional Trainee Profiles
Our Trainees
Jordyn Gagon
Jordyn Gagon is a first-year medical student at the Spencer Fox Eccles University of Utah School of Medicine working with the RUUTE program. She grew up in Price, Utah, a rural and underserved community, witnessing the implications of additional barriers to healthcare on her community. Her experiences motivated her to seek out the Rural and Underserved Utah Training Experience (RUUTE) program.
The primary objective of the RUUTE program is to improve medical education and training, health care access and long-term socio-economic benefit for rural and underserved communities of Utah and the Intermountain West by expanding interest, awareness, and placement of students and physicians. Each cohort of RUUTE Scholars participates in a variety of rural experiences including research, outreach experiences, clinical engagement, and elective courses throughout all four years of medical school.
Through RUUTE, Jordyn is working with the INSPIRE team, designing a simulation training for urban and rural healthcare workers to address provider burnout and stigma against pregnant women with substance use disorder. As a future physician, she intends to practice in a rural area where she can work with particularly vulnerable patients, such as pregnant women and other people with addiction.
Adabelle Balatico Carson
Adabelle Carson is a doctoral student in Counseling Psychology at the University of Utah and a research fellow with Project INSPIRE. She plays a key role in advancing the project’s qualitative research, including the facilitation and analysis of story circle sessions with individuals who have experienced pregnancy while managing a substance use disorder. Her work centers lived experience as essential evidence, ensuring that patient voices meaningfully inform the design of equitable, trauma-informed interventions.
In summer 2025, Ada was awarded a $20,000 AMETHIST@Penn Pilot Grant to leverage narrative medicine in intervention co-design to enhance maternal healthcare for patients with substance use disorder. This sub-study marks her first time as a principal investigator and builds directly on her qualitative work within Project INSPIRE, reflecting her growing leadership in community-engaged, patient-centered research.
Ada’s submission,“‘I Want to Be a Good Mom’: Barriers and Resilience in Maternal Healthcare for Utah Women with Substance Use Disorder,” was selected as one of the top-rated student posters at the American Psychological Association (APA) 2025 Division 50 Conference in Denver, Colorado. Reviewers awarded high scores for her compelling presentation of findings derived from the story circle methodology embedded within Project INSPIRE.
Kylie Leong-Bob
Kylie Leong-Bob is an aspiring physician with a strong foundation in narrative medicine, qualitative research, and patient-centered care. She holds an M.S. in Narrative Medicine from the University of Southern California, along with a B.S. in Human Biology and a B.A. in Psychology. Her academic training reflects a deep commitment to understanding the human stories that shape health, illness, and healing.
As a research fellow on the INSPIRE Project, Kylie played a key role in analyzing interviews and focus groups with health care providers caring for pregnant individuals with substance use disorder, helping to shape the project’s thematic framework and empathy-centered training materials. Her thoughtful, nuanced approach to qualitative inquiry earned her recognition as a first co-author on a manuscript examining provider experiences in perinatal SUD care.
As Kylie prepares to enroll in medical school, she has continued to foster her commitment to patient-centered care through her role as Front Desk Manager at Recovery Without Walls in Mill Valley, California. In addition to this role, Kylie is a Project Coordinator at the Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine, where she recently supported the planning and implementation of a four-part narrative medicine and well-being workshop series for faculty, staff, students, and community members. She also presented this work at the Kern National Network Annual Conference in Minneapolis, as a second author on the presentation.
Kylie aspires to pursue a career in obstetrics and gynecology, where she can integrate research, advocacy, and clinical care to advance sexual and reproductive health equity.
Elysha Cash
Elysha Cash was a Master’s of Social Work student completing her generalist practicum under the ELEVATE Center. This role facilitated her development of social work skills related to providing culturally-humble, trauma-informed care for women with substance use disorders, specializing in the perinatal period, and macro-level skills in advocacy, community and interdisciplinary collaboration and engagement, and program development.
Elysha worked closely with the CEREMONY project team to coordinate and help facilitate their community advisory board (CAB) focused on developing a specialty clinic for perinatal Native women with substance use disorders to address health inequities and maternal mortality and morbidity. She also fostered community engagement through attendance and involvement in community advocacy events and maintenance of a social media presence for the center.
