Episode Summary
Host Indrias Kassaye is joined by Dr. Cheedy Jaja, an Associate Professor of Nursing and the Assistant Dean of Global Engagement at the University of South Florida. His research interests focus primarily on sickle cell disease pain, analgesic, and psychopharmacogenetics. Starting life as an air traffic controller and professor of philosophy, Dr. Jaja found a love of science via the Human Genome Project and has since combined his interests into a compelling career addressing psychosocial and mental health issues within international patient populations.
Episode Notes
Join us for another episode of “Mental Health Trailblazers, Psychiatric Nurses Speak Up,” where our host Indrias Kassaye will be interviewing Dr. Cheedy Jaja, an Associate Professor of Nursing and the Assistant Dean of Global Engagement at the University of South Florida. His research interests focus primarily on sickle cell disease pain, analgesic, and psychopharmacogenetics.
Starting life as an air traffic controller and professor of philosophy, Dr. Jaja found a love of science via the Human Genome Project and has since combined his interests into a compelling career addressing psychosocial and mental health issues within international patient populations.
Alongside Indrias, Dr. Jaja covers several key topics including how sickle cell disease, both here in the United States and worldwide, is a poster child for health inequity, takeaways from time spent in his native Sierra Leone during the peak of the Ebola crisis, and how local traditions outside of Western modern medicine continue to play powerful roles in global communities when it comes to psychiatric and mental health.
If you want to learn how the Minority Fellowship Program provided vital support and resources in Dr. Jaja’s career, need advice on a nurse’s duty to care vs. duty to yourself, or just want to visualize the global impacts of psychosocial mental health issues across cultures, this episode is for you.
To learn more about Dr. Cheedy Jaja, visit https://emfp.org/mfp-fellows/masters/cheedy-jaja