Dr. Whitfield is the Director of the Colorado Social Emergency Medicine Collaborative. She is an Associate Professor at the University of Colorado, core faculty for the Denver Health Residency in Emergency Medicine, and attending physician in the emergency department at Denver Health.

Dr. Whitfield completed undergraduate and medical school at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. She did an emergency medicine residency at The George Washington University in Washington, DC and completed a fellowship in International Emergency Medicine there as well. This included a Masters in Public Health concentrated in Global Health Policy as well as consulting with the Institute of Medicine Global Violence Prevention Initiative. She has done clinical volunteer work in Guatemala as well as education and capacity-building projects in India, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, El Salvador, and Peru. Her global health work focused on educating physicians and other health care providers on providing emergency care in low – income settings.

Dr. Whitfield has led the University of Colorado School of Medicine Global Health Track, mentoring and teaching medical students to cultivate responsible, impactful careers in global health. She then created a fellowship in global health for the University of Colorado Department of Emergency Medicine, curated for emergency doctors planning to devote their careers to health care for those in low – resourced countries.

Her current focus is on expanding access to care for vulnerable populations, particularly persons experiencing homelessness and newly arrived migrants, through improved collaboration with community and hospital – wide partnerships as well as improvements in clinical operations.