Current Residents

PGY5

Robert JamesRobert James, M.D.

Dr. James was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri and is a Midwesterner at heart. He attended Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, to receive his B.S. in Biology (with a minor in math, because why not) and came very close to applying to pharmacy school before making a last-minute switch into medicine. He went back to St. Louis for medical school, studying at Saint Louis University School of Medicine, and, after a brief phase in which he thought he would become a trauma surgeon, he found himself torn between the art of psychiatry and the logic of medicine. With the aid of dual-boarded faculty mentors, he decided to seek out combined training himself and was delighted to be offered the opportunity to work at MUSC. His clinical interests include addictions, geriatrics, palliative care, various interventional sub-specialties, and the intersection between dialysis patients and mood disorders. In his free time, he enjoys classical piano and composition, traveling, following local and international politics, and attempting to get his parents to pay for dinner when they come to visit. He is also undoubtedly a Slytherin, despite various unscrupulous sorting hat websites that place him in Gryffindor.

Email: jamesro@musc.edu

 

Emily AmadorEmily Amador, D.O.

Dr. Amador grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota. She left the cold and moved to San Diego where she worked as a Nutrition Assistant before obtaining an undergraduate degree in cognitive science at the University of California, Berkeley. She then worked in environmental health and safety, ultimately being drawn to medicine. For medical school, she was pulled back to the midwest and attended Marian University in Indianapolis. Throughout medical school, the important connection between the mind and body became increasingly apparent, and the intersection of internal medicine and psychiatry became an obvious path for her. She is interested in many areas of medicine and psychiatry, including brain stimulation, addictions, and toxicology. She enjoys going to the beach, spending time with friends and family (including her son, husband, and temperamental cat, Indy), trying out new restaurants, reading, traveling, and hiking.

Email: amador@musc.edu

 

PGY4 

Alexander BaradeiAlexander Baradei, M.D.

Dr. Baradei was born in San Francisco, California. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in Biopsychology from the University of California Santa Barbara; afterwards, he spent three years in deployment overseas working for the US Department of Defense as a liaison, linguist, instructor, and cultural advisor. During this time, he helped buildpartnerships between US military personnel and US Allied Forces. He also worked with the US State Department to facilitate the safe movement of refugees in the region. Once he returned home, he pursued a master's degree, conducted research, taught genetics, and then attended Medical School at the Florida State University College of Medicine. In medical school, he served as junior faculty for the gross anatomy lab and Clinical Skills Learning Center. He was also elected to represent his class in redesigning the school’s basic medical science curriculum, and later was inducted into the Gold Humanism Honor Society. During his medical training, Dr. Baradei noticed that the medical field’s categorization of human pathology created an arbitrary mind-body divide. He decided to pursue a career fully immersed in both psychiatry and internal medicine to embody a unique holistic mind-body and patient-based approach to help achieve a comprehensive state of well-being for his patients. He also hopes to find innovative ways to transform how we think about, approach, and teach medicine. Dr. Baradei feels incredibly fortunate to have been able to join the MUSC family, and is humbled every day by the intelligence, hard work, and tenacity of his co-residents and colleagues. His fields of interest include Consult Liaison Psychiatry, Interventional Psychiatry, Inpatient Psychiatry, and Inpatient Med-Psych Units. Outside of medicine, he enjoys biking, cooking, traveling, and watching science fiction movies. 

Email: baradei@musc.edu

 

George Book

George Book, M.D.

Dr. Book grew up in Charleston, South Carolina, just across the river from MUSC in West Ashley. After graduating from Academic Magnet High School in 2015, he pursued a bachelor’s in chemistry at the University of Florida (Go Gators!) where he met his wife. After UF and a brief stint working in the Charleston City Market, George attended MUSC for medical school. He became interested in internal medicine and psychiatry after working with combined residents at the student-run CARES clinic during his M1 year. His medical interests include consult-liaison psychiatry, hospitalist medicine, addiction, medical education, and primary care. His non-medical interests include spending time with his wife and daughter, his goldendoodle- Pickles, losing week in week out in the psychiatry residency fantasy football league, trail running, cooking, and college football.

Email: bookg@musc.edu

 

PGY3

Zola FrancisZola Francis, M.D.

Dr. Francis was born in Queens, New York, but spent most of her childhood in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida with her parents and older sister. She is Caribbean-American and is of Guyanese-Vincentian descent. She moved to Georgia during her teenage years where she finished her last two years of high school, before attending the Georgia Institute of Technology for college. She graduated from Georgia Tech in 2016 with a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry, and then attended the Medical College of Georgia for medical school. She is a member of the Gold Humanism Honor Society and served as president of her school's chapter of the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society. She is interested in community outreach particularly as it relates to issues of homelessness and especially in populations that are affected by mental illness and substance use disorders; population health and ways to increase public and individual awareness of common chronic psychiatric and medical conditions; academic medicine; mentorship programs; and pipeline programs. She enjoys spending time with family, having small (in-person and virtual) gatherings with friends, reading fantasy novels, mentoring students, and doing crafting projects.

Email: francisz@musc.edu

 

Andrew KernAndrew Kern, M.D.

Dr. Kern grew up in Charleston, South Carolina. He studied Neuroscience at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina, with a particular emphasis on substance use disorders. His interest in psychiatry and his passion for addressing mental illness stigma led him to apply to medical school. During his third year at the Medical University of South Carolina, he chose to pursue combined residency training in Internal Medicine and Psychiatry because of his interest in the interplay between mental health and other dimensions of patient well-being. Dr. Kern feels fortunate to train with such empathetic and knowledgeable co-residents and faculty at MUSC. His academic interests include treating patients with chronic pain, who often suffer from associated depression and anxiety, as well as preventing delirium in hospitalized patients. In his free time, he enjoys walks with his wife, Dr. Megan Kern, who is an Internal Medicine-Pediatrics resident at MUSC. He also enjoys rock climbing and playing upright bass. Dr. Kern strives to be the kind of physician that he would feel comfortable recommending to family and friends.

Email: kerna@musc.edu

 

PGY2

Dr. Ruth Bishop

Ruth Bishop, M.D.

Dr. Ruth Bishop is originally from Shreveport, LA, and attended the University of Alabama where she studied Spanish and biology and pursued a master's in business administration through the STEM-path to an MBA program at Manderson business school. She then worked as an ESL teacher for a year in Medellin, Colombia, through the Fulbright program before matriculating at the University of Michigan Medical School. In medical school, she found a home within the organization Wolverine Street Medicine (WSM), which provided mobile health outreach and social services to people experiencing housing insecurity. She was moved by the patients she met through her work in WSM and found herself wanting to transcend the division between pathologies of the mind and body as a physician. She could think of no better way to do this than through combined training in Medicine and Psychiatry.

Her academic interests include addiction, health policy reform, health equity, research and medical education. Outside the hospital, she enjoys salsa dancing, hiking, cooking with friends, watching telenovelas, playing piano, and snuggle time with her cat, Suki. She has been impressed by the kindness, generosity, and brilliance of her co-residents and is thankful for the opportunity to pursue dual training at MUSC.

Email: bishopru@musc.edu

 

Dr. Erik Olsen

Erik Olsen, M.D.

Dr. Olsen would tell you that he grew up in Johns Creek, Georgia if you were from Georgia, but if you weren't, he would just say he grew up in Atlanta. At the University of Georgia, he majored in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and minored in History, partly because the history department building was on the pretty half of campus and students there were less stressed out. While in Athens, he helped lead a Christian nonprofit that worked to build friendships with the local homeless population and saw firsthand the devastation at the intersection of poor mental health, untreated chronic disease, and poverty. With this experience compelling him, he discovered a well-suited specialty in combined Internal Medicine-Psychiatry while studying at the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta. His professional interests currently include street medicine, hospital medicine, pulmonology, hematology/oncology, and primary care. Outside of work, he loves to spend time outside - be that road tripping, hiking, biking, surfing, running, or walking - with his wife, Maddie. They love their faith community, watching college football with new and old friends, and ignoring their ever-growing reading list for something on Netflix. 

Email: olsene@musc.edu

 

PGY1

Gabrielle Ghabash

Gabrielle Ghabash, M.D.

Dr. Gabby Ghabash is from Salt Lake City, Utah. She completed undergraduate degrees in biology and chemistry at the University of Utah. Prior to discovering she wanted to be a doctor, she was involved in tropical ecology research, studying the interactions between trees and caterpillars. She loved working with plants and bugs, but discovered she loved working with people even more while volunteering at a medical clinic that served the unsheltered population of Salt Lake City. She developed a passion for patient care and an interest in the complex interactions between physical, mental, social, and environmental health. During medical school at the University of Utah. she found her work with community organizations rewarding, including leading a STEM outreach program and facilitating support groups with NAMI. She was involved in research that investigated how demographic factors impact the diagnosis and treatment of rare neurological illnesses. Dr. Ghabash continued to see how physical and mental illness interacted and entangled. She is excited that this residency will set her up to provide compassionate and comprehensive patient care. She is grateful for the opportunity to explore her varied interests and better resolve her future goals. She is interested in providing a medical home for those with severe and persistent mental illness. While she is no longer an ecologist, she remains curious about the complex interactions between biological and non-biological factors and is interested in how social and environmental factors impact the development and manifestation of mental illness.

Outside of medicine, Gabby loves everything outdoors-- hiking, camping, skiing, kayaking, spending time with her dog, and, since moving 15 minutes away from a beach, surfing (badly). She also loves many things indoors including visual art (particularly printmaking), horror podcasts, and trying to make the perfect home-made vegan chicken nugget.

Email: ghabash@musc.edu

 

Abby Truitt

Abby Truitt, M.D.

Dr. Abby Truitt is originally from Columbia, SC. She attended Wofford College in Spartanburg, SC where she majored in Biology and added an Art History minor after a sophomore trip to Rome, Italy. During medical school at MUSC, the connection between physical and mental illness became apparent and she was inspired by the unique patient care approach of dual-trained residents and faculty to pursue combined training. Her professional interests include addiction, CL psychiatry, general hospital medicine, brainstem, and medical education. Outside of the hospital, she enjoys baking, crafts of all kinds, trying new brunch places, and going on walks in downtown Charleston.

Email: truitta@musc.edu