The Fuld Leadership Program
Fuld Fellowships
Julie Dotterweich Gunby
Biographical Sketch
Biographical Sketch
Julie Dotterweich Gunby
Growing up in East Tennessee, Julie Dotterweich Gunby declared to the world at the age of five that she was going to be a doctor and work where there were dirt floors. She followed that path throughout high school and entered the University of Georgia with a major of microbiology. However, she soon discovered that questions of ethics and epistemology are foundational for any scientific or healthcare pursuit, and earned her degree in philosophy and German. As a UGA Foundation Fellow, she traveled to six continents, visiting Cuba, China, Greece, Egypt, Eastern Europe, and Antarctica on educational exchanges. On these travels she had the opportunity to witness first hand the varieties, and the disparities, of healthcare delivery. Recognizing that she had much to learn about what it might mean to ‘work on dirt floors,’ Julie arranged to spend three months with Target Earth in South Africa, learning the practices of Christian sustainable development.
The tension between Julie’s love for abstract reasoning and her desire for concrete service peaked the summer after graduation. While studying philosophical theology at Notre Dame through the Pew Charitable Trust, Julie began volunteering at the Logan community center pool for adults with developmental disabilities, and discovered a passion for that population. Someone at the pool told her about the International Federation of L’Arche communities; Julie was compelled, and moved to L’Arche in Tacoma, Washington, where for two years she would share life with a beautiful household of adults with and without developmental disabilities. Through her role in L’Arche as a nursing assistant and a resident manager, Julie finally realized that her background in philosophy had a practical application to problems in the world. It was here that her desire to pursue nursing and communal models of care came alive.
Yet the path to nursing was still not entirely direct. Julie was offered and accepted the Petry Scholarship to Duke Divinity School. Although a master’s of theological studies is meant to be a purely academic degree, Julie worked closely with Duke’s Center for Spirituality, Theology, and Health to concentrate on pastoral care. Indeed, she enrolled in the CPE chaplaincy program, but after one night in a trauma unit, realized that dealing only with the ‘failures’ of medicine was not enough; she needed to work in an environment that more explicitly balanced death with wellness and tragedy with faith.
Julie has done volunteer work with people across the life span, from tutoring elementary school children to caring for aging adults. At Emory, Julie plans to continue to work with all ages of people in both the United States and abroad by specializing as a Family Nurse Practitioner. She hopes to continue to explore the creative ways that theology and primary care nursing can combine to offer alternative models of care for vulnerable populations.
|
