Authors: Dr. Joanna Georgakas, Vashti Price, Meghan Etsey, Dr. Kerry Wilkins
“Our Voices, Our Future” is a podcast by the Gender Equity Task Force of the American Medical Women’s Association that explores the challenges, stories, and successes of those working to advance gender equity in medicine. Through candid conversations with changemakers, advocates, and leaders, each episode dives into issues like pay gaps, leadership disparities, and inclusive workplace culture. Tune in to be inspired, informed, and empowered to take action. Full episode listening links are available below the transcription.
Dr. Georgakas: Welcome back to Dr. Anne, Multidimensional Women in Medicine. I’m your host, Joanna Georgakas, and today we’ll be chatting with Dr. Kerry Wilkins, a psychiatrist and education consultant. Dr. Wilkins, it’s such an honor to have you on the show.
Dr. Wilkins: Thank you for having me.
Dr. Georgakas: Of course.
And to begin, could you just tell our listeners a little bit more about you and the work that you do?
Dr. Wilkins: Absolutely. So, I’m an adult and child and adolescent psychiatrist, as well as an educational systems consultant. I have a lot of different roles.
So, I have a small private practice in combined therapy and medication management. I’m on faculty at UMass, and I’m a faculty liaison for the Child Psychiatry Fellowship Journal Club. I consult with numerous public school districts and educational collaboratives, and an educational collaborative is an out-of-district therapeutic school.
I recently started an initiative to support parents adopting home education models in the context of COVID, and that’s Serenity Home Education.
Dr. Georgakas: That’s a very big topic right now that I know a lot of parents are finding, or struggling with, rather.
Dr. Wilkins: Absolutely. I completely understand. I’m a parent of three myself, and I also am a pre-COVID homeschooler, so I know it’s a lot to tackle.
Dr. Georgakas:
Could you tell us a little bit more about that and what education consulting means?
Dr. Wilkins: Absolutely. So, my fellowship program was very heavy in community consultation. And personally, I think that that’s really valuable because, particularly in child psychiatry, the need is far greater than we will ever be able to effectively service, because there are so few of us.
And so, when I was getting started, I wanted to find a way to try to consult with people before they got all the way down the trajectory to seeing a child psychiatrist. I was seeing in my practice that a lot of children and families were going down trajectories that could have been diverted if there had been proactive support in place.
I found that the most effective way to meet the needs of the largest number of kids, in my opinion, was to consult with school districts and school providers directly, because that was a pretty good way to diffusely reach a lot of children simultaneously.
Dr. Georgakas: Yeah, absolutely.
Dr. Wilkins: So, that’s what I decided to start doing as an educational systems consultant. A systems consultant is a little different than what people traditionally conceptualize as physician practice. In a lot of ways, instead of consulting individual children, I consider the system itself my target.
So, I consult with different layers. I consult with clinical teams who are struggling to service individual students and their needs. I consult on building and developing initiatives to help the providers understand a more global perspective of child development and their interventions.
I also consult with districts and programs as a whole to think about initiatives for all of their children, then the children that are struggling a little bit, and then those outliers that are struggling significantly, to help all kids be successful in their educational trajectory.
Dr. Georgakas: That sounds great.
Was there like a particular story that kind of got you started, or like a gap that you noticed that made you want to go in and kind of make that change?
Dr. Wilkins: You know, I was feeling very bad, particularly for the children I was seeing in my child psychiatry clinic who were struggling so significantly. I was feeling that the children who were struggling the most were the ones who would be best served by having a traditional school trajectory, being able to conceptualize themselves as being successful in that school trajectory.
There is a case of a kid that I consulted with an individual school team and a teacher, particularly. It was a middle school boy who had suffered from a pretty significant early childhood trauma.
And when the team initially presented him to me, they presented him as lazy, unmotivated. He had a lot of, quote-unquote, behavioral outbursts, which they just felt meant he wasn’t invested in learning, despite the incentive programs that they were putting in place for him. They actually presented the trauma almost as secondary — “Oh, yeah, and also, by the way, he had this trauma, but we don’t think that it’s relevant.”
Dr. Georgakas: Wow.
Dr. Wilkins: And so, when I went to observe him in the classroom, the poor kid was trying so hard to pay attention. But where he was located in the room, he was in the very front, in quote-unquote preferential seating. And so, all of the stimuli behind him were keeping him in a fight-or-flight state the entire time.
There were people who would drop notebooks behind him. He would hyper-startle, and it would be hard for him to. You could see him really trying to get back on task. The transitions were so quick that it was hard for him to keep up, because by the time his body and his mind finally calmed down to pay attention, there would be another transition.
He would actively try to volunteer information, but people wouldn’t see him or wouldn’t recognize that he was trying to participate. At the end of the observation, the teacher came and said, “Well, this is just him. He’s just not engaged at all.”
With my child psychiatry eyes, I could see that he was really engaged and trying to engage the entire class, and it looked exhausting. They were just having difficulties understanding one another. And so that’s really what I conceptualize as my goal, helping people understand the needs and the desires of both parties.
Dr. Georgakas: Yeah, absolutely. That definitely can make a really strong impact. You wouldn’t… maybe a lot of people wouldn’t think that just a position in a classroom would really impact a child as much as it did in this case. That’s perhaps a simple change to, kind of, sitting in the back of the classroom, having all the stimulation in front of him, can really change the picture and let him engage in his education and succeed.
Dr. Wilkins: Absolutely.
Dr. Georgakas:
How did you first get involved in doing this education consulting?
Dr. Wilkins: When I was in my fellowship, I had the privilege of working with a child psychiatrist who was consulting to school teams. So, I had the benefit of being able to see how she structured her consultation. In addition, I consulted with a number of other child psychiatrists who were doing different forms of community consultation, and I kind of developed my own perspective on how I felt my type of consultation could be valuable to school systems and to providers, and to children within the school.
So, I kind of developed a form, a letter that I sent out to a couple of school districts and educational collaboratives in my area, and met to interview with them to tell them how it was a cost-effective intervention. That if they were able to meet the needs of the kids earlier on in their trajectory, they’d actually be saving the district tons of money by not putting the kids in out-of-district placements. And also, it would be a far better social-emotional trajectory for the children who were actually living that trajectory, which would affect the rest of their lives. And with that lens, a number of districts and collaboratives were interested in further consultation.
Dr. Georgakas:
When a district does call you for a consultation, read your letter, and agrees that there’s a large benefit, not only to the school but the children that they serve, what are the next steps from there?
Dr. Wilkins: The most important step, in my opinion, is to speak with the district leadership and define who your gatekeeper is. Who’s the person who’s going to be calling you to bring you in for consultation?
Then meet with that person and talk about what their priorities are. What do they see as the needs of their system? Where do they see that their individual systems are struggling? And how could I, as an outside consultant, help promote what the system is working on to intentionally improve the system as a whole?
Then, once you clarify the system needs, if you’re pulled in to consult with teams, the most important thing that I suggest is to make sure to clarify what the teams are looking for. What are their questions? If you can clarify what the systems want and help address those needs, then you have a way to provide what the systems need. But you have to first address what they’re looking for and go from that point of view.
Dr. Georgakas:
Addressing what they’re looking for, is that just like little focus groups with students, or is it with faculty?
Dr. Wilkins: Personally, I don’t consult with students directly, although different child psychiatry consultants do this differently. Personally, I choose not to consult, to actually talk to students, because I’m concerned for a couple of reasons. One, that the district would take on the liability of me, quote-unquote, doing an assessment of a child.
But more importantly, in my mind, I feel like if I step into the role of delivering services, the school staff feel like they can turn that over to me, and they don’t have to think about it or focus on it. What I would rather do is empower the professionals who are engaged with the students on a day-to-day basis and help enhance their skills.
Dr. Georgakas: So you’re teaching them how to fish rather than giving them the fish up front.
Dr. Wilkins: Absolutely. Because not only is that going to help the kid that they have called me into service, but it’s also going to help every single kid that they have the pleasure of engaging with in the future.
Dr. Georgakas:
In terms of suggestions that you’ve offered to programs, is that like curriculum changes, or like a change in the scheduling of a day for a student?
Dr. Wilkins: It could be all of those things. It really depends on the specific needs of the kids. Just like in medicine, my suggestion is to keep kids at the least restrictive level of care that they need to be successful.
If they require accommodations to be able to access the curriculum effectively, then accommodate how they get the content, but keep the content the same. I would rather them stay there than have to actually modify the curriculum that’s being offered. Because if you can help them understand the content that they’re getting, it keeps them on the same trajectory of gains as their peers.
So, the least restrictive, in my opinion, is always best.
Dr. Georgakas: Absolutely. That makes a lot of sense to me.
What are some challenges that you face in trying to implement these changes or in your consulting work in systems and districts?
Dr. Wilkins: I think that some of the challenges, clearly, in this day and age, now my consultation is all remote. By having remote consultations, I miss out on the ability to witness some of the dynamics within the system. Now I’m only kind of being shown what’s on video, so there’s a little bit more of a disconnect, and it’s a little bit harder to establish that trust and that alliance that it’s a little easier to develop when you’re in person.
So, before somebody can really take in the suggestions that you’re offering, they have to feel heard and understood. And they have to feel like you are trying to help them meet their own goals as opposed to telling them that what they’re doing is wrong and they need to change.
Making sure that it’s helping them understand that no, in fact, they’re doing an amazing job. And you’re hoping to provide more information so that they can do their job even more effectively, so that they’re able to provide an even higher quality of care.
We can always optimize our approach, and that’s what I’m hoping people hear when I consult with them. That’s really the challenge: to help them understand that I’m on their side. I’m not telling them that they’re doing it wrong.
Dr. Georgakas:
To complement that, what are some of the benefits that you see when there is more success within a district?
Dr. Wilkins: Ooh, there are a lot of benefits. I think that the biggest benefit is that a lot of times when I come in to consult, districts and collaboratives are feeling stressed and overwhelmed. They don’t feel like they have a clear understanding of what’s going on or why. They often feel like they’re at the end of their rope, and they’re just struggling to stay afloat, struggling to catch up.
I like to help them shift that perspective, to help the systems build a clearer vision of what they’re trying to accomplish and why they’re trying to accomplish it in the first place. Because once they understand their why, they can develop a clear, easy, and consistent plan that generates concrete results to improve the system and the child’s trajectory as a whole.
Dr. Georgakas: Absolutely. I know that with the pandemic going on, education systems have really been required to rapidly change and adjust to an online or smaller pod format.
Dr. Wilkins: Bless their hearts.
Dr. Georgakas:
How has your role as a consultant changed in that timeframe?
Dr. Wilkins: It’s been interesting because now, in a lot of ways, a lot of the shift is from supporting teams that are trying to make plans for the outliers, more to helping staff feel comfortable themselves, to help them prioritize their own self-care so that they’re able to function at their highest level of expertise as their best selves. So, despite all the stressors of learning new skills and operating in a pandemic, I think that there’s more of a focus on making sure that educators and educational providers are putting on their own oxygen mask first.
Also, I feel like the shift has been more toward more global interventions, more proactive social-emotional supports, knowing for the first time, really, that being able to recognize that emotional availability is the first step to being available to take in information, to be able to learn. So, if they prioritize the emotional support in the classroom or in a remote learning environment to get children connected to the identity of being a learner, then they’re going to be able to take in much more information than they would have been able to otherwise. You know, shifting to a more proactive model, which is, you know, kind of my jam.
Dr. Georgakas: Yeah, absolutely. It’s helpful to kind of be ahead of the curve in addressing these concerns before they become issues, especially when you’re looking at children who are kind of early on in their careers. And even though it’s maybe small, the small impact may cause a big shift in their trajectory in the future.
Dr. Wilkins: Absolutely.
Dr. Georgakas:
Could you tell us more, as I know a lot of people are more interested in this with the pandemic, about the shift to home-based education models?
Dr. Wilkins: Absolutely. You know, it’s interesting. And I think that the reason that I really started addressing the home education piece, even though I was a home. I have been a home educator myself for my own kids; historically, I’ve kind of kept that under wraps.
I haven’t really wanted to tell people that I do that because it’s not a commentary toward public or private or on-site education. It just happened to be what worked out the best for our family. So, I think with the pandemic, it’s really inspired a lot of people to think that, you know, potentially there are different educational models that could serve their children effectively.
Given individual family needs in the middle of the pandemic, sometimes those home-based education models might be more effective to meet both the academic trajectories and the social and emotional trajectories of their children when designed meaningfully.
So, from a home-based education model, there’s a whole spectrum of different approaches. They range from remote learning, which is what public schools and private schools are offering when they themselves are offering the instruction and the lesson plans, even though historically they’ve been on-site. So that’s considered a remote learning trajectory.
There are online public virtual schools, which have always been online schools. So they’re set up; that’s how they were originally designed to offer services through an online model.
There are online private schools, which may or may not be accredited, depending on the state that you’re in. There’s homeschooling, which these days has kind of narrowed a bit because homeschooling used to capture all of this in some forms. But homeschooling, when the term is used these days, is really more capturing that the parents designing the educational plan as opposed to an outside entity.
So, when you’re thinking about that, homeschooling parents can choose to purchase boxed curricula, which have everything in them, and you just follow the plan that the program gives you, or they can kind of design their own thing. They can pull different subject curricula, just as teachers do in school buildings. They can link up with outside entities, such as cooperative learning groups, tutors, online classes, and online learning, and develop their own educational program.
Or they can choose to design their own curriculum and education experience based on their goals. It’s really a pretty wide spectrum in what can be captured in a home-based education model. It really kind of depends on what the goals of the families are, both for their children as learners and for their family as a whole, and, more concretely, what they are hoping their children get out of their global educational trajectory.
Dr. Georgakas: Absolutely. I imagine that has changed a lot, too, with the advancement of technology, the availability of new resources on the internet, and having kids of this generation having everything at their fingertips.
Dr. Wilkins: Yeah, it’s really a brave new world. It’s very exciting for a lot of kids because there are so many different ways that they can become active learners in a new setting, in a new environment. There are a lot more ways that people can learn and take in information and apply it meaningfully, which is pretty exciting.
The flip side to that is that sometimes, particularly when parents are starting on a home-based education model, they get overwhelmed by how many options there really are, and they don’t even know where to start.
Dr. Georgakas: Yeah, I can imagine.
Dr. Wilkins: So, you know, I think that that’s kind of what my mission has been recently, to help parents define their goals: what they want their kids to get out of their childhood as a whole? And, you know, what are their philosophies of education? How do they believe children best learn? And what is an educational trajectory trying to achieve in the long term?
Because if you have these things identified, then the tools that you choose — be it curriculum, be it in-person experiences, or online opportunities — you can choose those tools more meaningfully when you understand why you’re choosing the tools in the first place.
And the same is true when you’re in on-site education. The same is true for teachers. You know, the tool is supposed to work for you; you’re not supposed to be shackled to the tool because it exists. And if it’s not working, you can always change your tool.
Dr. Georgakas:
In the same way that you provide consulting to school districts, have you been able to work successfully with families who are deciding to homeschool their children or adapt more online curriculum?
Dr. Wilkins: Yes, actually. Back in March, when I was consulting with the schools, and they had suddenly shifted to remote models without any preparation, I found that the schools were really struggling to connect with the families. The teachers and the systems only wanted to talk to the kids because that’s how they were used to operating.
I really felt that if they were able to connect more meaningfully with the families themselves, then the outcomes would be a lot better, a lot more improved. In fact, the outcomes could be better even past the pandemic if parents understood how their kids were learning and how to be able to help support them the most meaningfully.
You know, unfortunately, the schools were just so overwhelmed that they weren’t in a place to be able to really fully embrace that conceptualization. That’s changed for some schools, and some schools less so. But since I was having more difficulties getting traction with the schools themselves, I decided to shift set a little bit and begin to target families more globally to help them as they were finding themselves thrust into home-based learning models.
So, I’ve kind of developed an initiative to provide educational content to parents and families, and also to help them begin to develop their own plans and refine their plans to help the parents and the families feel centered, so their children can learn effectively.
Dr. Georgakas: That’s amazing.
For people who are listening in who may be interested, how would they be able to reach out to you to get those services?
Dr. Wilkins: So, there are a couple of different ways. A lot of the information that I’m generating right now is through Facebook. And so, if they were to look at my Facebook page, it’s at Kerry Wilkins MD. They could see a lot of the content, the written content that I’ve been generating. And that also has links to the Facebook support group, as well as some of my other initiatives.
Or they could go to my website (www.kerrywilkinsmd.com). If they were to click on Serenity Homeschooler, that would give them information about this home education initiative.
Dr. Georgakas: That’s incredible. I’ll make sure to put all those links below in the show notes for this episode.
Dr. Wilkins: Thank you. Fantastic.
Dr. Georgakas:
I know that you wear a lot of hats with your clinical practice, private practice, education consulting, both with school districts as well as in the home setting. And you’re also a mom and in charge of your own children’s education.
Dr. Wilkins: True story.
Dr. Georgakas:
Have you ever been told that “no way that you can do this? Good luck, but I don’t think so.”?
Dr. Wilkins: Oh, absolutely. You know, when I was starting, when I was in fellowship, and I was about to graduate, and I was considering what the next steps were, I really had a big shift. During most of my professional trajectory, I had planned to go into academia. I’m an academic at heart.
Then I had my first child during my training. I also had the experience of going to a lot of conferences through Fellowship Awards to, you know, find out more about the trajectory.
I was sitting at a breakfast for women in medicine. One of the mentors whom I looked up to the most got up there and said that, you know, to really be successful in this career, we needed to be okay with the fact that we wouldn’t be around to see a lot of our kids’ childhood. And that we had to be okay when our children wrote essays about the most meaningful person in their lives being their nanny.
That gutted me. You know, the reason in a lot of ways I’d entered medicine in the first place was, you know, my parents always told me that I needed to find a job where I could afford to give my kids braces if they needed braces. And part of me was, in that moment, asking, you know, what does it matter if my kids have beautifully straight teeth if I’m never around to see it?
So that kind of inspired me pretty dramatically to shift my focus a bit, to look at the things that I wanted to get out of my career, to make it professionally meaningful and valuable, but also to be more available for my family and more available for things outside of medicine that I also prioritize and also enjoy and love. Because I feel like if I’m balanced as a person, I’ll be able to more effectively meet the needs of the people that I’m trying to service. I’m also trying to, you know, service my own family. So I wanted to keep that in mind for myself because that was what was in line with my personal priorities.
As I was about to graduate from the fellowship, I was asked what I wanted to do. I said, well, you know, in addition to my private practice that I’m planning to generate, I’d also like to consult with schools, to be a community consultant.
And my mentor told me, “Oh, well, that’s great and all, but you can’t… you can’t do that.” I said, “Oh, well, why not?” And she said, “Well, those jobs don’t really exist. You have to be around for a while and kind of develop a name for yourself, and then people will reach out to you. And so, you know, that’s the only way that people kind of fall into these jobs. You fall into them. You can’t really develop, create, or make them.”
And I said, “Oh, thank you very much.” And I completely ignored it because, you know, it was coming from a good place, that she was trying to help me be realistic.
I do agree that it is important to have backup plans. Yet, even though you have a stable backup plan, that doesn’t mean that you can’t accomplish what you want to accomplish with your career. It just means that you have to be able to help people understand the value that you can provide and why you yourself are a valuable resource in being able to do that.
If you can understand your priorities and if you can understand what you’re trying to accomplish and why, then you can communicate that vision to other people. Then the trajectory happens naturally.
Dr. Georgakas:
Do you have any recommendations for people who are kind of hoping to pave their own path in the way that you have?
Dr. Wilkins: The first thing I would suggest to people is to consider your strengths, consider your interests, and consider your passions. What role do you want to have within your career? What provides you the most professional satisfaction?
Are you most inspired by giving direct service to individuals? Do you prefer to be in a role where you are giving recommendations? Or do you prefer more to be a consultant, taking other people’s questions and helping them find their own answers? You have to be really honest with yourself. What do you like the most? What are you really passionate about?
Then, you know, once you have those kinds of conceptualizations, then you can begin to narrow your focus a bit. I think it’s important to talk to mentors who have jobs, but also who have lives that you respect and that you aspire to. Ask them, you know, what are they glad that they did? And if they had it to do all over again, what would they do differently?
Then once you have that information, you can begin to really conceptualize what your journey is like. I think in medicine, we’re told that we’re training toward a career. But in actuality, we are developing a knowledge base. That knowledge base that we’re developing, we can then choose how we want to apply it meaningfully in a career that changes lives.
If people think about it that way, then I think that they’ll be far more satisfied in the career that they develop for themselves. Keeping in mind, you know, what is your why? Then, find a career that best helps you meet it.
Dr. Georgakas: Yeah, that’s really salient. I can hear how passionate you are about this work. And I find that, you know, after talking to a lot of different people, that having that passion and that drive — especially during the time during medicine, when a lot of folks are burning out or overwhelmed, and they see the health care system failing a lot of their patients — they kind of fall back on these passion projects they have. These projects are maybe part of their clinical practice or maybe a tangent to their clinical practice, and how they apply it.
That has kind of kept them in the field and kept them going. And almost like, I’ve seen it as almost a protective pursuit, which is ironic because it’s also more time-consuming, right? To pursue both different pathways.
Dr. Wilkins: It can be, but it doesn’t have to be. I think work-life balance is doable. And in fact, by seeking balance and seeking your own form of centeredness, I think that you’re able to function in your work more effectively and more timely, as well as more meaningfully.
I think it’s important to be honest with yourself because I think that a lot of doctors are multi-potentiate. So, we have a lot of strengths, and we could offer our services in a lot of different ways and a lot of different avenues. You have to be really, really cognizant of what your personal priorities are.
I would suggest that you have to kind of make a hierarchy for yourself so that when you find that you are inevitably overwhelmed, you’ve already made the choices where you need to cut back. So you can cut things out and say no more often, so that you can really do what you love and what you’re the most passionate about. Because that’s where you’re going to find the most traction and the most gain.
Dr. Georgakas: Absolutely.
Is there anything else that you want to talk about before we wrap up the show today?
Dr. Wilkins: I would like to say to everyone listening that you have only one precious life. And, you know, if you have children, your children only have one precious childhood. So, I think that it’s important to think about both how you want to experience your precious life and how you want the people around you, who you love, to experience your presence within it.
If you can find that moment of truth, that true mindfulness of being present in the moment you’re in, when you’re at work, you’re at work. When you’re at home, you’re at home. You focus all of your attention there. Perhaps that might bring you the most personal and professional fulfillment.
Dr. Georgakas: Well, that’s such a beautiful note to end on. Thank you so much for chatting with me today, and all the listeners tuning in.
Dr. Wilkins: Thank you so much.
Dr. Georgakas: If you’re interested in learning more about Dr. Wilkins’ work with Serenity Homeschooler, you can find her website listed below in the show notes, or connect with her via her Facebook page. You can also follow Dr. Wilkins on Twitter @kerrywilkinsmd.
If you’re interested in learning more about the podcast or being featured in an upcoming episode, you can find her contact information in the show notes. Thank you to the American Medical Women’s Association for supporting the series.
For more ways to be engaged in the community and meet more incredible women in medicine, sign up to be a member at amwa-doc.com. Hope to see you at the next conference. For now, have a great day, and don’t forget to let a spark of positivity in whatever you may do today.
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About the Authors
Joanna Georgakas, MD
Joanna Georgakas, MD, is a psychiatrist and a Clinical Fellow in Geriatric Psychiatry at Mass General Brigham in Boston, MA. Dr. Georgakas received her BA from Middlebury College, where she majored in Neuroscience and Gender, Feminist and Sexuality Studies. She earned her medical degree from the Alpert Medical School of Brown University and subsequently completed her psychiatry residency training at Brown, serving as Chief Resident. Dr. Georgakas’s academic work has focused on the “leaky pipeline” phenomenon for women in STEM fields and feminist science studies. She has been an active member of the American Medical Women’s Association (AMWA) since 2018, where her contributions include co-founding the Brown University AMWA chapter and serving on the AMWA Gender Equity Task Force. She also created the podcast series “ Doctor and ____: Multidimensional Women in Medicine” (now run by incredible students and called “Our Voices, Our Future”) to elevate the narratives of women advancing gender equity in medicine. In recognition of her contributions, Dr. Georgakas was a recipient of the AMWA Eliza Chin Unsung Hero Award.
Vashti Price, MS, MHS, MS4
Vashti Price is a fourth-year medical student at St. George’s University. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Biology from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, a Master’s in Biological Sciences from Alcorn State University, and a Master’s in Health Sciences from Meharry Medical College. With a strong passion for public health and health equity, Vashti has dedicated much of her time over the years to volunteering with underserved populations, including individuals experiencing homelessness and children in need. Her commitment to service continues through her involvement with the American Medical Women’s Association, where she serves on the Gender Equity Task Force and the Sex & Gender Health Collaborative Committees. Vashti is particularly interested in the intersection of medicine, public health, and community outreach. Outside of her academic and clinical pursuits, she enjoys spending time with friends and family, attending festivals, exploring new cities, and winding down with a good Netflix series.
Meghan Etsey, MS4
Meghan Etsey is a fourth year medical student from St. George’s University. She has a Bachelors of Arts in Biology and a Bachelors of Arts in Nutrition and Dietetics from Bluffton University in Bluffton, Ohio. She served as the President of the St. George’s University’s Women in Medicine chapter in St. George, Grenada where she expanded relationships with the community and worked towards educating women and helping the youth. She is also a member of the Gender Equity Task Force and Sex and Gender Health Collaborative Committees within the American Medical Women’s Association. When she is not pursuing medicine, you can find her with her friends and family on different road trips and adventures exploring the world.