Born and raised in St. Louis, Natalie attended the University of Notre Dame for undergraduate studies before attending medical school at Saint Louis University School of Medicine. While a medical student, she was elected into the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Society as well as Arnold Gold Humanism in Medicine Society and graduated with the Rodney M Coe Distinction in Community Service. During her time as an Internal Medicine resident at Barnes Jewish Hospital/Washington University in St. Louis, she was involved in multiple initiatives for resident wellness and education. She collaborated with Dr. Amber Deptola, as well as residents and faculty from Saint Louis University, on a research project analyzing the changes in both physical and mental health of interns throughout their first year of residency. As a member of the HVPAA Future Leaders Program for 2019-2020, she established a quality improvement initiative aiming to enhance provider identification in Epic through the sign in/sign out method. Along with Drs. Rakhee Bhayani, Carol Faulk and Jessica Vanderlan and numerous wellness committee members, she developed small group sessions on imposter syndrome which were incorporated into ambulatory didactics.
As the Chief Resident in Quality and Safety at the John Cochran VA, she led her own quality improvement initiative to improve Code K (Code Blue) documentation and assisted in mentoring a number of additional QI projects including: improving hepatitis B screening prior to chemotherapy, transitioning medicine resident handoffs to a CPRS-embedded Shift Handoff Tool, and increasing the rate of Shingrix vaccination in Rheumatology patients. She also has been integral to the VA’s efforts to safely redistribute extra doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to inpatient veterans. She looks forward to spearheading additional quality improvement initiatives in both the inpatient and outpatient settings and enhancing the PSQI curriculum for the Internal Medicine residency. Outside of work, Natalie enjoys traveling, reading and cooking.