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Jonathan Kozol is an educator and author of several books, including “Amazing Grace” and “Ordinary Resurrections” that focus on race, poverty and education. He has devoted over three decades to issues of education, civil rights and social justice in America. He came to know St. Ann’s Church and its priest, The Rev. Martha Rollins Overall, and the children of Mott Haven in 1993. The struggles of the neighborhood of Mott Haven and the trials that the children and community endure parallel those of many disenfranchised poor minority communities all over the United States, where the disparities between the wealthy and the poor increase exponentially each year.

The Rev. Martha Rollins Overall— Mother Martha, as she is known to those close to her— received her law degree in 1976 and practiced law for 13 years. She entered the Episcopal priesthood in 1991. Since 1993, she has been the priest at St. Ann’s Church in Mott Haven, whose 48,000 residents occupy in the poorest congressional district in the country. Mother Martha’s church and the community there were the focus of Kozol’s 1995 book, “Amazing Grace,” and his 2000 book, “Ordinary Resurrections.”

After completing my Bridging the Gaps internship with the Philadelphia/Delaware Valley Chapter of the Sickle Cell Disease Association of America in the summer of 1997, I earned my Bachelors of Science in Occupational Therapy from the College of Health Professions at Thomas Jefferson University in 1998. I additionally earned a Masters Certificate in Pediatric Occupational Therapy from Temple University in 2003, and my Masters of Jurisprudence in Health Law from Widener University School of Law in 2012. I am a licensed occupational therapist in New Jersey and Pennsylvania; I am also certified in Healthcare Compliance and Healthcare Environmental Management.

I began my clinical practice at Magee Rehabilitation Hospital in Philadelphia and have treated patients in a diverse array of settings, including home care, subacute rehabilitation, long-term care, and schools. All the while, I also had an intense interest in health policy and how to advocate for patients, families, and providers in order to maximize the benefit of skilled rehabilitation therapies and access to specialized durable medical equipment such as powered wheelchairs. This interest first led me to a role writing medical policy for Independence Blue Cross, then to a role leading a large team of rehabilitation professionals who provided home care for Moorestown Visiting Nurses and Hospice.

In graduate school, I discovered my true passion and commitment for healthcare risk management and patient safety—all patients deserve safe healthcare, and in a system constrained by many competing forces, all providers benefit from support and training to provide the safest care possible. After completing my program, I initially consulted, providing compliance analysis, research and writing, data abstraction, accreditation survey support, and web-based education to small and mid-size healthcare organizations.

In 2015, I joined ECRI—an independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the safety, quality, and cost-effectiveness of care across all healthcare settings worldwide—as a Risk Management Analyst. At present I am a Senior Patient Safety Analyst/Consultant; I provide clinical risk management and patient safety services to physician practices through ECRI’s Ambulatory Care Risk Management program and to federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) and free clinics under the Health Resources and Services Administration. I also serve as an analyst for FQHC members of the ECRI Institute and ISMP Patient Safety Organization. I am passionate about educating and supporting the providers who care for our nation’s most vulnerable patients at FQHCs; this stage in my career feels like “full circle” from my still-treasured time with Bridging the Gaps. I’m so happy to join the BTG alumni network and am open to connecting with fellow alumni interested in reconnecting and/or interested in professional collaboration. I am also open to connecting with current students and recent graduates who would like to learn more about patient safety or discuss the evolution of “nontraditional” career paths in healthcare.

Julie Cousler served in Bridging the Gaps in 1996 through her Social Work program at Temple University leading a group of Philadelphia high school students on a community project in Central Philadelphia to beautify a vacant lot and check in on elderly neighbors in the heat. From there she received her Master’s degree in Social Work with a concentration in administration and social planning. After graduate school Julie Cousler served at Congreso de Latinos Unidos for ten years as the Vice President for Health and Wellness where she led a $5 million division of critical health services, after coordinating the maternal and child health programs for a year. Then in 2009, she served as Senior Policy Fellow for the Stoneleigh Foundation addressing truancy and chronic absenteeism through cross-systems work with the City, and she served as Deputy Director for Concilio 2011 to 2014, the city and state’s oldest Latino non-profit organization, where she provided strategic vision and oversight to health and social services with responsibility for fundraising and development, and strategic communications and community engagement.

Today in 2021 she serves as Executive Director of Education Plus Health working to bring the non-profit’s successful school-based health center (SBHC) model to scale, and as executive director of the Pennsylvania School-Based Health Alliance, a non-profit she founded in 2020 with other SBHC advocates from across the state.

Julie Cousler has served on numerous boards of directors in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania including the National Clearinghouse for the Defense of Battered Women, the Seybert Foundation, the Pan American Academy Charter School, the Women’s Medical Fund Board of Directors, and the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence. She has held officer positions on all of these boards. She has also earned a variety of prestigious awards for her work including the 2020 Social Innovations award for health care innovation, the 2006 Purple Ribbon Award from Lutheran Settlement House for her domestic violence work, and the 2004 Forum Award from the Forum of Executive Women.

After graduating from Penn Medicine in 2011 I went on to do my residency in Emergency Medicine at Cooper University Hospital . After residency, I completed a year-long fellowship in Administration and currently work both clinically as a practicing EM physician in the Cooper ED as well as administratively as the Medical Director of the Cooper Emergency Department. In addition, I have a special interest in process/quality improvement work and teach PI/QI methodology at both the medical school and GME level. In my role as an EM physician and administrator I can’t emphasize enough the importance of multi-disciplinary teams and work within healthcare. We have so much to learn from one another! What I appreciated most from my BTG summer was working with and learning from others outside of the physician track. Happy to connect with students interested in EM, administration or process/quality improvement!

Roopali Kulkarni completed the bridging the gaps summer internship program in 2016 while completing her dental education at the University of Pennsylvania. she graduated in 2019 with both her doctor of dental medicine degree and master of public health degree.

She is currently serving as the chief resident of the postdoctoral oral medicine program at the university of Pennsylvania. she plans on working in dental academics following the completion of her residency.

Roopali’s passions lie in community health, service and outreach, and working with an interdisciplinary approach to care. her career focus is on the integration of medicine and dentistry, which blossomed into her pursuing an oral medicine residency program.

Alongside patient care, Roopali is actively involved with health advocacy efforts and organized dentistry. she served as the 2018-2019 national president of the American student dental association and now maintains involvement in philadelphia county dental society, Pennsylvania dental association, American dental association, American dental education association, and the American academy of oral medicine. she is currently working on a number of research protocols involving the oral-systemic health connection.

Bridging the gaps has allowed Roopali to combine all of her professional goals and hopes to continuing building relationships and collaborating with other disciplines through the btg alumni network.

Sometimes it is hard to know the impact of a simple YES. Back in 1990, I was sitting on the lawn with Cindy Wienbaum (one of our two student founders, along with Steve Chapman), talking about community health and social justice, and feeling just a little out of place in medical school. “You should be the student coordinator for Bridging the Gaps.” I’m not sure I even asked her what that was before I said yes. Something about that passionate invitation from someone I knew meant it. That yes has made all the difference. I met Lucy Tuton, JA Grisso, Tony Rostain and Don Schwarz, the faculty putting together a new, interdisciplinary, community oriented program, Bridging the Gaps. These are mentors for life – they taught me about collaboration, about kindness, about equity, and the principles that still guide my work. At Youth Emergency Services that first summer I learned that there are no simple solutions, and that systems aren’t built to solve complex inequities. I learned a little about leadership: perseverance, honesty, some frustration and some joy. Now as a family physician, I continue to learn from my patients where systems fail and where they do harm. To advocate for system change, I have learned to always ask why, and who, and how. And then to get on with it and do something different. After a health services research fellowship in Ann Arbor, where I learned about Community Based Participatory Research, I ended up in Allentown, PA. This is where the work really gets going. There was no health center, so we built the first federally qualified health center. I said yes to hiring people with lived experience so that we could welcome people into their own health center. So many of our patients were experiencing toxic stress that we built integrated behavioral health and made a timebank for mutual aid. We had so many patients who kept going to the hospital and weren’t getting better, we developed community based care management that asked people what they needed to be well, and advocated for humanity in healthcare. We saw the terrible stigma against people with addictions, people experiencing homelessness, people in pain, and how all of these issues were worse if you were black or didn’t speak english. In response we built primary care addiction medicine and incusion health, where healthcare goes where people need us and adapts to what they can manage. My partners are many – from people with lived experience, to grassroots organizations and advocates in positions of power. What brings us to work together is commitment to Radical Welcome – our belief that everyone has something to contribute, that everyone deserves caring, and exclusion is violence. The best thing about saying yes to BTG years ago is that I met people with the courage to do things differently, to create what’s needed and stick to principles. My invitation is to say yes to something you didn’t plan, and see what unfolds. Our careers as pathfinders have twists and surprises. We need people around us to challenge us when we are too comfortable, support us when the work hurts, and celebrate our successes together. BTG has been that community for me. I hope we can be that community for you.

Maggi was one of the student leaders of Bridging the Gaps during the summer of 1993. She received her medical degree at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in 1996. In addition to being elected into the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society, she graduated with a prize for outstanding achievement as a clinician.She completed her residency in Obstetrics & Gynecology at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital. She was an Administrative Chief Resident in her last year. She also served as a representative to CREOG (Council of Resident Education in Obstetrics and Gynecology). After completing residency in 2000, Maggi worked as an Assistant Professor of Clinical Medicine for the New York University School of Medicine treating her own patients and training residents and medical students at Bellevue Hospital Center. From 2001-2011 she served on multiple national committees for the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. She moved to Miami in 2003 and has been in private practice ever since. Though she would not have predicted it, Maggi found a richness in being a general OB/GYN. She enjoys practicing in the community in which she lives. She loves caring for generations of women within the same family. Most importantly, she is constant learning from and striving to provide evidence-based care to her patients. For over 10 years, Maggi has been an active leader in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Baptist Hospital of Miami. Bridging The Gaps enriched her education by providing opportunities to engage in the local community and collaborate with practitioners beyond the “M.D.” track. This experience continues to influence her today as she heads an OB/GYN Collaborative Committee that involves nurses, physicians, social workers, and pharmacists among others. Together, this committee strives to improve the quality of care it provides to their patients. Maggi is excited to connect with BTG Alumni Network. Hopefully, her years as a general OB/GYN can assist in developing standardized quality of care that breaks downs the many inequities that exist. She is eager to learn from fellow alumni.

My experience with Bridging the Gaps begins prior to starting medical school, when I worked at Community Legal Services as a public benefits paralegal. In that capacity, I collaborated with volunteer students at the Chinatown Medical Clinic, which was in part supported by BTG students. There I saw first hand the barriers non English speaking individuals face in accessing health care. That experience convinced me to go to medical school. In my second year, I became a National Health Service Corp scholar. In 2008, I myself participated in BTG, as an intern at Jane Addams Place, a women and children’s shelter in (at the time) West Philadelphia. There, I was exposed to trauma informed care and the “sanctuary model”. This experience was crucial in my understanding of providing empathetic care to the poor. In 2011, I graduated medical school from Drexel and started a Family medicine residency at University of Pennsylvania. There, I learned how to provide full spectrum primary care, with an emphasis on marginalized populations. I learned to incorporate “trauma informed care”, as well as other ideological frameworks, into my clinical care. After graduation in 2014, I joined Greater Philadelphia Health Action, a network of Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC) as an attending physician. There, I practice broad spectrum primary care, including adult medicine, pediatrics, outpatient OB/GYN, and medication assisted therapy for opiate use disorder. In 2016, I became Clinic Director of GPHA’s Southeast Health Center location, where I continue to work today. Over the past year, I have been involved in our COVID testing and vaccination program, which emphasized providing COVID care to groups that traditionally suffer health disparities. As a BTG alum, I would like to support other health professional students who are interested in providing the highest quality of care to all marginalized patients.