Dr. Jennifer Davis joins UNMC ID as an assistant professor following her ID fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital/Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She is an expert in HIV care and will practice in the HIV clinic, but will also see a broad range of other patients on the ID consult service. Read on to learn more about our superb new ID physician. Congratulations, Jennifer!
Tell us a little about your background in medicine.
I was born in Maine and raised in Andover, Massachusetts. I did my undergraduate work at Middlebury college in Vermont where I was a double language and culture major in Japanese and Mandarin Chinese. I lived in Japan for a few years after college where I taught English in public elementary and junior high school in rural Okinawa. I then attended Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta where I fell in love with ID and HIV in particular. I completed residency in Internal Medicine at the University of California San Francisco and then Infectious Diseases fellowship at the Massachusetts General Hospital/Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) combined fellowship program. In my second year of fellowship, I was the HIV Clinician Educator Fellow at BWH under Dr. Paul Sax and was also a scholar in the Harvard Macy Program for Educators in Health Professions. Moving to Omaha will be the first time I have lived in the Midwest, and I’m looking forward to the new adventure.
Tell us about your new position.
I’m joining the Infectious Diseases Division as an Assistant Professor of Medicine in mid August. My clinical practice will primarily be devoted to seeing patients in the HIV clinic. I will also see patients on the General Infectious Diseases consult service which cares for patients with a wide range of infections and symptoms suggestive of infection.
Why did you want to work at UNMC?
When I started looking for post-fellowship jobs, I knew that I wanted to stay in academic medicine with a focus on HIV and medical education. A co-scholar in the Harvard Macy Program (the amazing Dr. Jasmine Marcelin) introduced me to UNMC and I was very impressed both by the HIV team and the general atmosphere and culture of the ID division as a whole. It was clear to me when I interviewed that this is a place where I would be valued and given ample support and opportunity to grow.
What about ID makes you excited?
Everything! I love thinking about itty bitty bugs and the drugs that do battle with them. I love being able to spend time with patients to learn their stories because you never know when the smallest detail about an afternoon spent with a grandson’s pet bearded dragon will explain the source of a Salmonella bacteremia. It is a privilege to get to know our patients so intimately, and often times in ID (though not always) our patients improve to the point where they seem like different people at their follow-ups a few months later.
Tell us something interesting about yourself unrelated to medicine.
I love to read and bake. My book tally at the end of the year is often embarrassingly high. I’m very much looking forward to experimenting in my new kitchen and feeding my new colleagues with the results of those experiments.
Welcome Dr Davis!