GLOBAL IMPACT
Matthew Fuller, MD
Distinguished Humanitarian Award
As a medical student at the University of Iowa, Matthew Fuller, MD, developed a passion for global health, thanks to his emergency physician mentors who got him involved in service. When it came time to complete his residency and fellowship, Fuller was drawn to the Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine because of the reputation of the Department of Emergency Medicine’s global health programming. “There’s such a strong tradition of service at the University of Utah, and I also had some spectacular mentors here who gave me opportunities I wouldn’t have found elsewhere,” said Fuller.
When the directorship of the global health fellowship program opened as his fellowship was concluding in 2014, Fuller was “in the right place at the right time.” As director of Global Health Fellowship, Fuller “helps align the resource-rich environment I practice in with resource-challenged environments. I try to leverage the resources we have in the Department of Emergency Medicine, School of Medicine, and the University of Utah, and connect those resources with people who have significant desire and capabilities around the world, whether in our backyard or halfway across the world in Vietnam,” he said.
The term “global health” is a huge umbrella—often used as a catch-all term for anything outside mainstream health care, Fuller explained. “In reality, we have programs that work with the undomiciled population in Salt Lake City, as well as projects in Syria, Vietnam, and Peru.”
“The programs he has set up have really become a model for some other teaching and global health practices throughout the U.S. and world,” wrote Department of Emergency Medicine Professor Scott McIntosh, MD, in his letter of support for Fuller’s nomination.
His humanitarian efforts extend to his work as a researcher as well. When a close friend experienced pregnancy loss during peak poor air quality in the Salt Lake area, Fuller developed a research project on air quality’s impact on early pregnancy loss “which led to the study’s publication in Fertility and Sterility,” wrote Department of Emergency Medicine Associate Professor Troy Madsen, MD, in his letter of support for Fuller. “The paper received attention across worldwide media and has served as a catalyst for continued attention to air quality concerns in Utah.”
Fuller’s role as fellowship director is in addition to his associate professorship in the Department of Emergency Medicine. And while he is humble about his contributions to the program, he acknowledges the sacrifices to his family as he spends weeks each year traveling abroad.
“I have a wonderful, supportive partner, and two young boys, so it weighs on me that my choice to go abroad is often a choice not to be present for them—and they don’t have a choice in that, as important as the work is.”
Still, it’s a fulfilling job that is worth the sacrifices. “It’s incredibly important for me, especially as a physician at an academic medical center, to remain humble,” said Fuller, who has helped lead global health projects in places like the Navajo Nation in Shiprock and New Mexico, among other locations. “Traveling to an area where colleagues have fewer resources than you, and are working harder than you, under so much more stress than you have, is very grounding. It reminds me how lucky I am to practice where I practice.”