Current Fellows
Desiree Carmen, MD
Desi is a recent graduate of Sutter Santa Rosa Family Medicine Residency. Her early memories of the healthcare system were binational, traveling across the Port of Entry to Ciudad Juarez with her family for routine healthcare. She saw medicine as a means for social change in undergrad while attending American University in Washington DC, where she studied Health and Environmental Journalism. She returned home to attend medical school at Texas Tech during the height of the border refugee crisis, working with asylum seekers. During residency, she continued to care for the underserved as a full-spectrum family medicine provider and joined the Physicians for Human Rights Network. She is eager to join the Contra Costa Fellowship and hopes to expand her knowledge in POCUS, gender affirming care, and global health advocacy. During her external fellowship, she will be working at La Clinica de La Raza as a prenatal care provider and hospitalist. Her international work will include time in Malawi and Mexico. In her free time, Desi can be found exploring new hiking trails, listening to podcasts, and enjoying old comedy films with her partner and golden retriever named Champagne.
Helena Frischtak, MD
Helena L Frischtak, M.D. is a 2021 graduate of the Family Medicine residency at Contra Costa Regional Medical Center. She grew up in Rio de Janeiro until age 18, when she moved to the U.S. for college, eventually staying for medical school at the University of Virginia. She has always enjoyed tropical and low-resource medicine, and has worked in clinics and hospitals in Brazil, New Zealand, and Mozambique. She also spent a year doing fieldwork research in the Peruvian Amazon. She was recently accepted to work with Doctors with Borders (MSF), and hopes to be sent on her first assignment soon. Helena is thrilled to be pursuing the UCSF-Contra Costa Global Health Fellowship, which will give her the tools to be a competent provider abroad and provide a unique global health community for years to come. In her free time, she is usually riding her yellow bike around San Francisco or in close-by state and national parks.
Rebecca Fujimura, MD
Rebecca Fujimura attended The Ohio State University and went on to medical school at Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine, where she earned her MD and completed the international health program. During this time she did medical missions to Eswatini and Moria Refugee Camp. She completed family medicine residency at MedStar/ Georgetown- Washington Hospital Center in Washington, DC. During this time she participated in the Georgetown global health track, where she was the chief resident and participated in work with Child Family Health International, University of Namibia medical school and Mann Deshi Foundation. She holds positions on the Global Operations Committee for the Consortium of Universities for Global Health and the Board of Bridging Medical Gaps Collaboration. She has worked with the AAFP Robert Graham Center as a policy scholar and contributes to the medical unit of ABC news. She has a strong passion for health equity, medical and education access, health media, and policy. She hopes to gain more experience in international health education, point of care ultrasound, and grow as a more well-rounded physician and advocate for her future communities. In her free time she enjoys hiking, spinning and theater.
Goutami Sanyal, MD
Goutami Sanyal is a 2022 graduate from the family medicine residency program at University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center in Jackson, TN. She was born in Calcutta, India, and grew up between the American south, and Westchester, NY. She has been interested in marginalized communities since her volunteer street clinic experiences in India, during her undergraduate degree at Columbia College. She completed her Masters in Reproductive and Sexual Health Research from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, in which she focused on maternal mortality in the global South. Her other global health experiences include volunteering in free clinics in Dominica, where she went to medical school at Ross University, as well as working at a clinic for migrants and refugees in Mexico, at the southern border during residency. Goutami's interests include full spectrum women's health including obstetrics, immigrant and refugee healthcare/advocacy, and social justice in medicine, all of which she is excited to explore as a UCSF-Contra Costa Global Health Fellow. In her spare time, she enjoys reading fiction, taking care of her too many houseplants, writing, and cooking; she also looks forward to hiking in California's many beautiful parks.
Matthew Swartz, DO
I'm a little older than your typical Global Health Fellow, but this Bay Area native is excited to return home after nearly 25 years on the East Coast. After completing my undergraduate degree at the University of Georgia, I briefly taught kindergarten in Virginia before graduating medical school at Nova Southeastern University. My Family Medicine residency was completed at the Naval Hospital Camp Lejeune in North Carolina where my service in the Navy allowed for a variety of broad and unique experiences. For the past 10+ years I've worked as a Hospitalist specializing in rural, resource limited facilities, and presently also manage a full spectrum family medicine practice. Combining my background in austere medicine with my interest in community health, I hope to spend the second half of my career supporting the development of family medicine and the delivery of primary care in under-resourced areas both domestically and internationally. The Global Health Fellowship will allow me to develop my POCUS skills and broaden my exposure to public and community health. In my free-time I enjoy exploring with my dog Zippy, watching my nieces grow into capable young ladies, reading philosophy and mountaineering anywhere I can get to.