I spent the first seven years of my career working at a community mental health and substance use treatment clinics in Northern Arizona, and my prior career was as a Field Engineer in commercial construction. I feel that my diverse life experience allows me to connect with my patients to build the trust that is so often lacking in underserved communities.

I made the change to pursue medicine when my oldest was born and she was quite ill. I remember vividly, the feeling of being scared and helpless and not knowing what to do for my sick child, so I started this current life path. My start in mental health and substance use treatment was happenstance and entirely not planned, but I very soon learned that I love working with this demographic. VEN allows me to work with similar groups of people as I did before, and provide a different facet of their care.

Working with the underserved, and stigmatized communities in Arizona is the best part of VEN. With so many community partners working on shared goals, a real change is being made in the fight against HCV. Very often in medicine we only manage conditions, but with the work that VEN Centers does, as a Team, we have the ability to cure people of their HCV and make a meaningful improvement in their health and their lives.