Dr. Heather Hammerstedt On Hippocratic Hustle

On April 5, 2018, Dr. Heather Hammerstedt, GEC’s Executive Director, appeared on the Hippocratic Hustle podcast to talk about her start in global health and how GEC came to be. Hippocratic Hustle is a podcast created by Carrie Reynolds, MD where women doctors come together and share their stories of their business, project or side-hustle.

​How do you start an Emergency Medicine program in a region without emergency rooms? How do you start an overseas non-profit? Heather explains how she and a few friends helped a rural community in Uganda start the non-profit Global Emergency Care. That then grew into an entire program for training nurses and other healthcare providers to run the unit. It’s truly amazing how helping a community solve one small problem then grew into a larger and larger service. Learn how you can volunteer in Uganda for this amazing program as well!

In this episode, you will learn:

• The humble beginnings of Global Emergency Care
• Developing a curriculum for emergency care practitioner program
• How Dr. Hammerstedt is teaching herself out of her job
• Implementing emergency medicine and care programs in Africa
• Issues along the way in implementing the program
• People to include in making the program possible
• How to Volunteer for the program

Heather Hammerstedt, MD, MPH is a board-certified emergency physician in Boise Idaho and did her postgraduate residency in Emergency Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess’s Harvard Affiliated Emergency Medicine Residency program. She is also one of the founders of the nonprofit 501(c)3 organization, Global Emergency Care (GEC) and currently functions as Executive Director. GEC currently has an ongoing clinical, academic, and consultant relationship with stakeholders in Uganda, where they have created the country’s first emergency medicine training programs for advanced providers and physicians and are working with the national government to create a national emergency care system.