About
Ashli Chew is currently a second-year medical student at East Tennessee State University’s Quillen College of Medicine and serves as NRHA’s Communication Coordinator. Growing up in a small Middle Tennessee town, Ashli’s passion for rural healthcare and other medically underserved communities was conceptualized at a young age and fervently continues today. She participates in the Rural Primary Care Track (RPCT) program at Quillen, which allows her to experience the state of medical care in surrounding rural communities and to build upon the knowledge and skills necessary to enact durable improvements. She attended the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, where she received her undergraduate degree in biochemistry, served on the executive council of the UTC Pre-medical Society, and remained active in her search for solutions to rural healthcare access. Before beginning medical school, she obtained her master’s degree in pharmacology from the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. Ashli’s current research interests include expanding incentivization for attracting physicians and other healthcare professionals to rural communities and improving ambulance response rates in less developed areas. With her role as a medical student and eventually as a physician, she plans to contribute to the development of new policies benefitting rural communities. Ashli enjoys travelling, working out at CrossFit, and spending time with her friends and family. She hopes to one day build her own home and animal farm with her fiancé, somewhere in Tennessee.