MD – Icahn School of Medicine Mount Sinai, New York, NY
Residency – Emergency Medicine, LAC + USC Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA

Biography: Dr. Anna Darby, is an emergency medicine physician with a particular interest in serving homeless and incarcerated/formerly incarcerated populations. Her research aims to highlight potential areas for policy intervention to help reduce homelessness as well as to increase mental health and medical treatment availability for people experiencing homelessness.

As an NCSP/VA scholar in the VA Emergency Department, Dr. Darby became a co-investigator on the PCORI grant-funded project “Person-Centered Housing Options, Services and Environment” aimed at exploring differences in supportive housing, particularly in the setting of COVID-19. This work resulted in an oral presentation titled “Nothing About Us Without Us: Perspectives of Individuals with Lived Expertise on Homelessness Research” at the 2021 American Public Health Association National Convention. Additionally, Dr. Darby co-chaired the committee on Race, Racism and Anti-Racism at the Society of Academic Emergency Medicine’s 2021 Consensus conference, with a manuscript of the resultant scoping review in progress. She completed her fellowship clinical requirement by serving in the West Los Angeles Veteran’s Affairs Emergency Department.

In addition to focusing on her research project, Dr. Darby continued community engagement as a member of the steering committee for the Frontline Wellness Network, a non-profit for healthcare workers taking care of people experiencing incarceration. She also co-directed our new Research Foundations & Communication training aimed at enhancing knowledge and skills in communication and to introduce first-year scholars to academic research. Dr. Darby co-created the curriculum and recruited multidisciplinary speakers to give talks on topics ranging from introductions to scoping reviews to power point skills.

Dr. Darby is currently a full-time Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine (Clinician Educator Track) at USC Keck School of Medicine and Assistant Program Director at the Los Angeles County + USC Emergency Medicine Program, where she intends to continue qualitative and mixed-methods research as a means of community engagement and to best serve the largely indigent, under-resourced population.