Annette Gadegbeku, MD

PRESIDENT

Annette is an Associate Professor in the Department of Family, Community, & Preventive Medicine at Drexel University College of Medicine/Tower Health Medical Group.  She is Clinical Faculty Advisor for the DUCOM Health Outreach Project (H.O.P.) Student Run Clinics & Programs and Associate Program Director for the Drexel-Tower Health Family Medicine Residency program where she has integrated resident preceptorship over a longitudinal community medicine curriculum.  HOP was established in 1990 and has grown to include 5 clinics and 10 outreach programs over the last five years at various locations in Philadelphia including a Salvation Army drug & alcohol rehabilitation center, a women & children’s shelter, and a Prevention Point needle exchange site.  

 
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Melissa Chen, MD

PRESIDENT ELECT

Melissa is an internist and Clinical Director at the Interprofessional Community Clinic in North Chicago, a clinic led by students from 7 disciplines at the Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science and established in 2013. The clinic runs once a week and consists of 4 co-located services: medicine, physical therapy, behavioral health, and podiatry. She also teaches the Chicago Medical School students of RFU as an Associate Professor.

In 2021, she is pioneering the school's first longitudinal curriculum on health equity.

 

Fiona R. Prabhu, MD

SECRETARY

Fiona R. Prabhu, MD, Professor, Department of Family Medicine at TTUHSC School of Medicine. Completed medical school at Texas A&M University, residency training at TTUHSC School of Medicine, Lubbock, Texas. Now full professor in the department of family medicine. Lubbock Banker’s Association Professorship for Community Outreach at the Student Run Free Clinic since 2015; co-medical director since 2011. Co-faculty advisor for the Gender and Sexuality Alliance group at TTUHSC School of Medicine, and Faculty advisor for the Service in Medicine elective and Clinical Practice with Underserved Populations elective.

 

Melanie Menning, MD, MPH

Treasurer and research co-chair

Melanie Menning, MD MPH is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Family Medicine, University of Nebraska Medical Center. She is the Research and Education Faculty Advisor of the SHARING student run free clinics which serves the poor, uninsured patients in Omaha, Nebraska. SHARING is a group of interprofessional clinics, which are staffed by students in the disciplines of Medicine, Dentistry, Medical Lab Sciences, Medical Nutrition, Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Physical Therapy, Physicians Assistants, Public Health and Social Work.

 
 

Melissa Halverson, PharmD

Past president and Member At-Large

Melissa Halverson graduated from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences earning both a doctorate in Pharmacy as well as a Master in Public Health.   She is the director of the 12th Street Health and Wellness Center, an interprofessional, student-run, free clinic.  She is now the Director of Didactic Education and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physician Assistant Studies teaching the pharmacology and pharmacotherapy courses as well as coordinating the service-learning curriculum. 

 

Christopher Eric Ervin MD

Research Co-Chair & member At-Large

Dr. Christopher Eric Ervin earned his medical degree from Duke University School of Medicine, General Surgery internship at University of Illinois at Chicago and Emergency Medicine residency at Cook County Hospital. He presently works at Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM) as adjunct faculty with the Department of Physician Assistant Studies and Director of Community-based Initiatives in the Department of Family Medicine, serving as the Director of Operations for Morehouse School of Medicine Student-run Free Clinic, the MSM H.E.A.L Clinic (Health Equity for All Lives), and manager for the HRSA-funded CHAMPS program (Community Advanced by Medical Practice Superstars). As an Emergency Medicine physician, he has served on multiple committees and have held assistant and interim medical director positions at numerous hospitals. He served as Chair of the Emergency Medicine Section, Secretary of the House of Delegates, and the Bioterrorism Task Force for the National
Medical Association. As a representative for the American College of Emergency Physicians on the Commission to End Health Disparities, he served on the Steering Committee, Co-Chair of the Subcommittee on Workforce Diversity, and Chair, Ad Hoc Committee on Business and Health Disparities. Dr. Ervin has served in numerous capacities with community-based nonprofits, including Chair of Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities Region 3 Advisory Board,  President of the South Fulton Human Services Coalition, member of Georgia Department of Public Health Community Health Worker Advisory Board, and past chair of the Georgia HIV Prevention and Care Council, In 2019, Dr. Ervin was honored by the state of Georgia with a Proclamation for his commitment to community service.

 

Catherine Hechmer MSW/LISW-S

Member at-large and Communications Chair

Catherine a Licensed Independent Social Worker and Licensed Independent Chemical Dependency Counselor. She is the Interprofessional Education and Practice Field Coordinator for the Ohio State University College of Social Work. Catherine has most recently worked in integrated primary care federally qualified health centers in underserved neighborhoods of Columbus. She currently supervises social work students at the student-run Columbus Free Clinic. Her other focus of clinical practice has been in substance use disorder treatment.

 

Jill Omori, MD

Past president and Faculty Development Co-Chair

Jill Omori is an Associate Professor of Family Medicine & Community Health at the University of Hawai’i John A. Burns School of Medicine. She is also the Infectious Disease Officer for the City and County of Honolulu and the Director of the Office of Medical Education, and Hawaii H.O.M.E. Project. Her main objectives as a medical educator are to empower and inspire her students to want to be more than just good doctors, but rather great doctors who push themselves to be critical thinkers and lifelong learners. Omori is establishing herself as an expert in healthcare for homeless patients through the Hawai‘i Homeless Outreach and Medical Education Project.

 

Teresa Schiff, MD

Faculty Development co-chair 

Teresa Schiff is an Assistant Professor at the John A. Burns School of Medicine at the University of Hawaii. She serves as the Medical Director for the Hawaii H.O.M.E. Project, a student run mobile clinic that provides free health care to the homeless on the island of Oahu. HOME Project is working to increase interprofessional partnerships for students and patients in behavioral health, pharmacy, and social work. We are also developing our leadership training to empower students in various operating roles including patient advocacy, research, quality improvement, and fundraising.

 

Michelle Mifflin

Conference Co-Chair

Michelle Mifflin is a board-certified osteopathic family practice physician working in the Phoenix area since 2004. She specializes in working with patients with complex chronic health problems, with an emphasis on preventive care, including lifestyle and nutrition.

She is currently a Clinical Associate Professor in Osteopathic Family and Community Medicine the Arizona College of Osteopathic Medicine (AZCOM) at Midwestern University in Glendale, AZ (MWU). In this role she teaches first and second year medical students osteopathic manipulative medicine, general clinical skills, interprofessional practice, social determinants of health and homelessness, and precepts students in the family medicine clinic. Concurrently, she serves as the Director and AZCOM Faculty Advisor for Health Outreach through Medicine and Education (HOME), assisting students from all colleges at MWU Glendale in providing free medical care to homeless shelters and underserved neighborhoods in the Phoenix area. She has also been part of the Student Run Free-Clinics Faculty Association since 2017, and has been on the Conference Planning Committee since 2018, chairing the 2020 and 2024 conferences.

 

Rachele Harrison, PharmD, MEd

Conference Co-Chair

Rachele Harrison is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Clinical Sciences at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) School of Pharmacy. She practices as an Ambulatory Care Clinical Pharmacist at the Ascension Columbia-St. Mary's Family Medicine clinic where she provides comprehensive medication management services. Harrison is also a Pharmacy Director for MCW's Saturday Clinic for the Uninsured (SCU), an interprofessional, student-led free clinic serving underserved populations in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, since 1991. SCU strives to provide comprehensive, quality care that empowers patients to achieve their optimal health outcomes.

 

Rebecca Lundh, MD

PAST PRESIDENT AND Membership Co-Chair

Rebecca Lundh is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) in Milwaukee. She is faculty at the Ascension Columbia-St. Mary's Family Medicine Residency and the Medical Director for Saturday Clinic for the Uninsured (SCU), the MCW student-run free clinic which was established in 1991. Medical and pharmacy students work interprofessionally under faculty supervision to provide care for patients with acute and chronic illness at this weekly clinic.

 

Brenden Tu MD

membership co-chair

Brenden Tu grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. He completed a BS degree in natural resource science from UC Davis. He then completed a Master’s degree in Wildland Fire Management, with an emphasis in fire behavior and safety, from Colorado State University. After 6 years with the USDA Forest Service, he changed careers and attended medical school at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. He completed his residency training in Family Practice at UC Davis. After residency he worked for three years as the Lead Physician at Salud clinic, a Federally Qualified Healthcare Center in West Sacramento. He is currently working as a staff physician at the UC Davis Student Health and Wellness Center.

Brenden is currently the medical director for two student run clinics- Clĺnica Tepati since 2008 and the Knights Landing One Health Clinic since 2012. Clĺnica Tepati was founded in 1974 to fill the need for culturally competent primary health care to the uninsured Latinx community in Sacramento. The Knight Landing One Health Clinic was established in 2012 as part of a larger community engagement project based on the One Health concept, providing health care to the small farming community of Knights Landing.

In addition to general primary care, his specific interests include LGBTQ health, international health (mostly practiced in downtown Sacramento), teaching health professional students, and mentoring undergraduate students.