QI leader, cardiothoracic surgery nurse join UMMC faculty

Medical Center leadership is proud to announce the following additions to its faculty and leadership staff.

Osagie Austine Ebekozien, M.D.

Dr. Osagie Austine Ebekozien, a national award-winning quality improvement leader and frequent keynote speaker at national conferences with more than 15 years of experience, has joined the Medical Center faculty as an assistant professor of population health in the John D. Bower School of Population Health. He serves as vice president of population health and quality improvement at the T1D Exchange.

Ebekoien received his medical degree from the University of Ibadan and his M.P.H. from the Harvard T.H Chan School of Public Health. He is a Certified Professional in Healthcare Quality and Lean Six Sigma Black Belt. He serves on the board of directors for numerous nonprofit organizations and chairs different national working groups.

He previously led the Office of Accreditation and Quality Improvement at the Boston Public Health Commission. He also served as teaching faculty for numerous national collaboratives and courses focused on diabetes, HIV, asthma, workforce development and health equity. His previous collaborative experience includes the lead faculty role for the Morehouse School of Medicine National Diabetes Health Equity Collaborative. He has also led the data analysis, performance improvement, accreditation, risk management and patient safety leadership roles at community health centers and hospital systems.

Dr. Ebekozien’s practice experience focuses on using performance management principles to improve outcomes for vulnerable populations. He has shared the results of his programs at numerous national conferences, webinars and peer-review publications. He has also served as the peer reviewer for various high-impact journals.

His awards include the 2019 NACCHO National Model Practice Award for creating an innovative QI program addressing health inequities; the 2018 City of Boston HHS Service Excellence Award for improving the lives of Boston’s residents; and the 2015 Tufts Foundation Innovation Award for his innovative work in improving health outcomes for African-American women with hypertension.

Rachel Lee Gambill, M.S.N.

Rachel Lee Gambill, a staff nurse in the Cardiothoracic Surgery Step-down Unit at UMMC, has joined the Medical Center faculty as an instructor in nursing.

After receiving her B.S.N. from Mississippi College in 2014, Gambill served as a staff nurse in UMMC’s Cardiothoracic Surgery Step-down Unit from 2015-17 and as charge nurse in UMMC’s Hospital Medicine Medical-Surgical Unit from 2017-18. She then served a stint as a patient care coordinator in Cardiothoracic Surgery at UMMC from 2018-19 while concurrently serving as a staff nurse in the Hospital Medicine Medical-Surgical Unit in 2019. She returned to the Cardiothoracic Surgery Step-down Unit as a staff nurse in December 2019. Gambill earned her M.S.N. at UMMC in 2020 and serves as an adjunct clinical faculty member at the Mississippi College School of Nursing. She recently attained the Certified Nurse Educator certification, a mark of distinction for nurse educators developed by the National League for Nursing.

An inductee into the Theta Beta Chapter of the Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society for Nursing, Gambill is an active member of the National League for Nursing, the American Nurses Association and the Mississippi Nurses Association.