Dr. Jennifer J. Hess is a graduate of the UAB School of Medicine. Dr. Hess served on faculty at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota for 14 years prior to returning to UAB in 2018. She recently joined the faculty at Vanderbilt in 2020. She completed a residency in Emergency Medicine at Mayo where she was selected to lead as Chief Resident. She subsequently completed a Harvard Macy Fellowship focused on curriculum and leadership development. Dr. Hess is currently an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine in the Vanderbilt Department of Emergency Medicine. Dr. Hess' professional interests center around the ability to create systems and develop teams that meet the needs of our health care providers and our patients. She was involved in the formation of a fellowship in Social Emergency Medicine at UAB which educates fellows while making a community impact on the social determinants of health. She also helped establish programs for addiction management and MAT, including both clinical pathways that integrate with the community and innovative ways to mentor and educate residents and faculty through simulation. Dr. Hess has also developed onboarding strategies for newly hired faculty joining academic Emergency Departments. An ongoing passion for Dr. Hess is to advocate for those impacted by the social determinants of health and healthcare disparities. The moral determinants of health call us to not only address the sick arriving in the ED, but also those issues in our communities that need healing. She looks forward to developing upstream solutions to the social determinants of health by partnering with Meharry, leaders in the community and the patients who need our voice. She is a mother of three and wife of a physician leader, making life crazy but joyful, and always an adventure. Exercise is both an outlet and a passion; best done with friends and outdoors. She enjoys the adventures of cross-country skiing, biking, paddle boarding, swimming and running. She also finds time for cooking, traveling, devouring Audible books and mentoring rising women leaders in medicine.