Residency Videos
 

34 Haverhill Street, Lawrence, MA 01841 Tel: 978-725-7410  Fax: 978-687-2106 EMail: residency@glfhc.org

Ainex Baez, M.D., Mayaguez, PR University of Massachusetts Medical School (MD) University of Massachusetts (BS) Growing up in a small Puerto Rican town, Ainex learned not only to give from the heart but to have faith and believe in herself. She believes in the importance of the family unit, seeing it as the nucleus of everyone’s life.  This is why she feels the physician’s role is to keep families healthy. Ainex wants to develop relationships with a diverse population.  During medical school she studied Portuguese in Brazil to better serve the growing Brazilian immigrant population in Massachusetts. Ainex is fluent in both Spanish and Italian and moderately proficient in Portuguese.  She enjoys travel and meeting new people, letter writing, crafts and baby sitting. Ainex is now a faculty member in our residency program.

Deborah Grorud, M.D., Boston, MA University of Massachusetts Medical School (MD) Dartmouth College (BA) Deborah’s former work at the YMCA helped her clarify the principals important to her and focus on a career in family medicine.  She believes the mission of family medicine is quite similar to that of the Y in that it offers the opportunity for a deep connection with individuals and exerts a positive influence on the community as a whole.  She’s looking forward to the opportunity to work with diverse populations and incorporate many experiences into one job.  She would like to practice in an urban, multicultural setting such as ours. Deborah is conversationally fluent in Spanish and has taken a Medical Interviewing in Spanish course.  She enjoys running, taking pottery classes and reading in her spare time. After graduating from residency, Deborah practiced with us. She will be moving to Washington D.C. in September 2008.

Lara Hall, M.D., Washington, DC University of California, San Diego School of Medicine (MD) Brown University (BA) When Lara was a volunteer in a small village in the Congo, there was no doctor and people died every day from preventable illnesses. She loved her work there in health education but she wanted to do more.  After her return to the States, she worked for Planned Parenthood where she discovered that providing underserved patients good medical care required negotiating cultural, socio-economic and racial barriers.  Lara is committed to community outreach and has learned that by treating families, the patient can be better treated. Lara is fluent in French and conversant in Spanish.  She recently ran in the Rock-and-Roll Marathon in San Diego, raising over $4000 for research.  She enjoys reading modern fiction and traveling with her husband. Lara now practices at Cambridge Health Alliance, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Julie Johnston, M.D., Dayton, OH Brown Medical School (MD) University of Michigan (BS) Learning about the inequalities in women’s health care initially piqued Julie’s interest in medicine.  The daughter of educational missionaries, she was encouraged to pursue community service from an early age.  She has a clear understanding of the needs of the underserved through her volunteer experiences working with the homeless in New York and Chicago, in a HIV clinic in a prison and with immigrant populations.  These experiences and her interest in diversity lead her to seek a residency in an urban environment such as ours. She also spent her last med school rotation studying health care in South Africa and falling in love with the country.  Julie recently studied Spanish in Guatemala. In her spare time, she enjoys sailing, photography and crafts. Julie is now the Coordinator of the Gynecology Rotation.

Lynn Kim, M.D., Seoul, Korea Tufts University School of Medicine (MD) Brown University (BA, BS) Lynn first knew she wanted to be a doctor as she watched her grandfather treat patients in her native Korea. Immigrating to the States when she was 14, she knows first-hand the difficulties  immigrants face in obtaining health care – from financial concerns to language and cultural barriers. Lynn’s experiences range from spending 3 months as a research associate to India to working in a CHC serving primarily gay/lesbian population.  She also participated in an AMSA fellowship in “Managed Care for the Underserved”. Lynn is fluent in Korean.  Her pastimes include camping out and cooking.  She also enjoys playing the flute and piano and listening to live jazz. Lynn is now a faculty member in our residency program.

Claire Reardon, M.D., Teaneck, NJ University of Vermont College of Medicine (MD) Wesleyan University (BA) Claire’s ideal health care system is one embedded in the community. She feels that Family Medicine is a stimulating endeavor that combines compassion, intelligence and understanding of complex issues.  Her volunteer experiences include working in the Berkley Free Clinic providing care to a predominately homeless population and teaching health classes to homeless teens.  Claire has also taught a junior high health and reproduction class through Planned Parenthood.  She is especially interested in working with teenagers. Claire speaks Spanish conversationally. She claims international travel and foreign languages as “passions”. She also likes to play ultimate Frisbee, read fiction and “swim in any natural body of water”. Claire now practices at Community Health Center Inc., in New London, Connecticut.

Elena Rosenbaum, M.D., Guatamala University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine (MD) Swarthmore College (BA) Elena transferred to our program from the University of Virginia Family Medicine program as an R2 in July. Her volunteer activities have taken her from building low-income housing in Pennsylvania to the farms of France and New Zealand to the desert of Australia. She also worked on a research project in Guatemala studying training methods of birth attendants. Elena is a native-speaker of Spanish and is conversational in French and Hebrew. In her spare time, she loves outdoor activities including hiking, cross country skiing and playing tennis. After residency, Elena completed a HIP Fellowship with us. Elena recently relocated to Albany New York, and will join the faculty of the Albany Family Medicine Residency in January.

Andrew Smith, M.D., New Bedford, MA Dartmouth Medical School (MD) Dartmouth College (BA) Andy believes we must “translate our love and our beliefs into daily actions and work”, a sentiment he learned while volunteering to serve the poor with Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta. His experiences there had a profound effect on his life, revealing his strong inclination to work with those in need. Andy is a graduate of the Lawrence Family Medicine Residency and OB Fellowship programs. He feels that practicing full spectrum family medicine in Lawrence is the most professionally and spiritually fulfilling job on the planet. He enjoys hiking, backpacking, biking, playing hockey, running the Boston Marathon and rooting for the Red Sox. Andy is now the Assistant Director of the OB Fellowship.

Nina Spiro, M.D., New York, NY Universidad Central del Caribe (MD) Hamilton College (BA) Nina sees as her role model her physician great-grandfather.  Her goal is that a humanistic, holistic approach be the root of her practice of medicine.  Her semester in Madagascar lead to a thesis on Malagasy traditional healing and reinforced Nina’s understanding of the importance of community.  Other experiences in a poor village clinic in the Dominican Republic and in rural Puerto Rico exposed her to the needs of both young and old and enhanced her interest in family medicine.  Nina is fluent in French and Spanish with some proficiency in Italian and Malagasy. She’s an avid snowboarder and loves to travel.  She also enjoys knitting, reading and the movies. After graduating from residency, Nina has stayed on with us to complete a HIP Fellowship.

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