When Amy Willis graduated from Notre Dame as an undergraduate, she put off her ROTC military service until she finished medical school. She then did her residency and began her career in the army’s medical service as an OB-GYN which included deployment to Iraq. Amy stayed on as a civilian physician after her active duty commitment ended and also started her family. Last year, when her husband, also a physician with the military, finished his active service and was accepted into an interventional cardiology fellowship at Yale, Amy decided this was the perfect time to resurrect her desire to pursue public health.
Now an MPH candidate in the Advanced Professional Program’s social and behavioral sciences track, Amy says she’s always seen women’s health as tied to public health. She works part-time at the birthing unit at Saint Raphael’s Hospital in New Haven, where she sees herself deepening her thinking about health in the community and awareness of other things going on in patients’ lives that affect their health. The training in public health, “makes me a better physician for my patients,” she says. It is also strengthening her analytic skills in evaluating research literature, which she appreciates as she eyes working in more academic or teaching settings.