The heart of this fellowship was the partnerships I built in Cincinnati. My closest mentors were Dr. Lisa Crosby, Clinical Director of the School-Based Health Centers, and Dr. Andrew Beck, a pediatrician whose work focuses on health equity and chronic illness. I also received much oversight from Dr. Rob Kahn, the VP of the Michael Fisher Center. Both of them grounded me in the day-to-day realities of serving kids in schools: the unpredictable rosters, the overworked staff, the families who want the best for their children but face immense barriers.
Working alongside nurses and staff at Rockdale Elementary and South Avondale Middle School gave me my clearest lessons. I spent mornings in the school-based health centers, watching how staff balanced dozens of responsibilities with limited resources. I saw how deeply they cared for their students, and how quickly they embraced tools that could make their work more manageable.
This fellowship also showed me the power of cross-sector collaboration. I worked with Cincinnati Public Schools staff who managed chronic illness registries, with data analysts who pulled information from Epic, and with community resource coordinators who connected families to social services. The message across all these partnerships was simple: when schools and health systems work together, kids are healthier, more present in class, and better able to succeed.
