ABOUT NANCY
I have been a Primary Care Doctor for the better part of 20 years. Throughout this time, it has been both a gift and a privilege to learn from and care for my patients.
I am currently a physician with the University of Washington, providing care for the homeless in downtown Seattle, Renton and Shoreline. Previously, I served as a physician and Medical Director at Virginia Mason Medical Center, Lynnwood, and an Assistant Professor of Infectious Disease at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.
Like many of you, I have had a complicated life. In significant ways I was fortunate. My parents were well educated and my mother loved us deeply and taught us the value of love, loyalty and connection. My life was not without struggles. My parents split, bitterly, when I was young and their conflict and my mother’s chronic illness resulted in my father’s departure from my life and my family's subsequent poverty. I grew up fast, taking on responsibilities uncommon among my peers. While these were tough challenges to face as a child, they gave me strength, maturity, and resolve to help others and have profoundly shaped my life’s work.
After finishing college at UC Santa Cruz, I served in the Peace Corps in West Africa where I witnessed a different level of poverty and began to develop a more nuanced understanding of individual and community needs.
Today, building on the foundation of my personal experience, my professional training in Public Health, Infectious Disease, Integrative Medicine and Addiction Medicine, and my work with patients over the years, I see both significant needs remaining unmet, and possible solutions left on the table. My commitment, training and expertise make me uniquely qualified to bring together and work with diverse stakeholders to develop practical policies that will address these challenges with equity and compassion.
As our community experiences the interwoven pandemics of COVID, increasing homelessness, the worsening mental health and addiction crises, without an apparent end in sight, it is heartbreaking to see this impacting our neighborhoods, my patients and our entire state. I am tired of witnessing slow and inadequate attempts to fix these problems. I want to be part of our state’s government working on real, substantive solutions. That’s why I’m running for the empty seat in my legislative district.
My husband and I are raising our two boys in the View Ridge neighborhood in North Seattle. I'm excited about this opportunity to give back to the community which has given so much to me and my family. I hope you will join me!
RECENT PUBLICATIONS
Affordable Health Care Letter To The Editor
Seattle Times
January 15th, 2021
What if this physician had access to real solutions?
KevinMD.com
May 25th, 2021