Alumni AN ALUMNA CALLED TO HELP HEAL BOTH AT HOME AND ABROAD Dr. Asa Oxner (left) and Lucy Guerra (right), COCO Clinic co-coordinators, were presented with USF Health culture coins by Dr. Mark Moseley, USF Health chief medical officer, for leading efforts to get the virtual clinic up and running.
education we were able to change their entire quality of life. That was some of the most important and fulfilling work of my career.”
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R. ASA OXNER IS AN HONORS alumna who truly embodies the values of our College: cross-disciplinary collaboration, global engagement, impactful cutting-edge research, and dedicated community service. A native of Ocala and recipient of a Florida Bright Futures Scholarship, she started her college career at USF with a love of science and quickly discovered that medicine was her calling. While her core classes were focused on that pursuit, she says she appreciated all of the opportunities Honors offered her for learning and involvement outside of her major. “I loved having a creative and fulfilling outlet outside of my pre-med training,” says Oxner. “I completed a minor in music and even composed a symphony for my Honors thesis. The Honors College taught me that my assigned workload is not my total workload. It introduced me to multiple opportunities to participate in volunteer and leadership experiences that fulfill me,
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and that I can pursue those while also succeeding professionally.” After earning her medical degree from USF in 2011, Oxner completed her residency in internal medicine at Harvard University. She then returned to Tampa and began working with USF Health. A decade into her professional career, Oxner already has a history of making a big impact to address medical crises both in the Tampa Bay area and globally. In 2014 Oxner and her husband spent two months in the Republic of Sierra Leone during the initial Ebola outbreak. When they returned home they felt called to do more, and signed up to spend an additional year working to battle the virus in the West African country. “Once the outbreak was under control the communities needed to reopen their hospitals and we were able to help them rebuild and train new staff,” says Oxner. “I would do it again in a heartbeat. We were working with patients who are very hard working, but still had so little and through care and
Her time in Africa was not her only experience helping to tackle a medical crisis overseas. She was also one of the USF Doctors who volunteered to travel to Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in 2017. “The entire island was devastated,” says Oxner. “Through a collaboration between USF and Tampa General Hospital we were able to bring more than 20,000 pounds of medical supplies to them in the few months after the hurricane.” Oxner went on multiple humanitarian trips to help the area and performed public health assessments of those whose homes were destroyed, often working without power. “You have every reason in the world to keep helping. Even if it’s hard, it’s worth it.” Oxner said that the hurricane relief work wasn’t easy but she would do it again, and in fact, she did. In 2019 after Hurricane Dorian destroyed parts of the Bahamas, Oxner was on a team of four USF Health physicians to provide medical care in the country. Her work dealing with these crises abroad may have helped her prepare for the global pandemic that would arrive in Tampa Bay less than a year later. When COVID-19 began impacting Florida, Oxner helped to quickly set up testing sites on USF’s Tampa campus. “It was important to safely test residents in a way that was both accessible and
