For more than 15 years, Jorie has been a familiar and beloved presence at Doctors Without Walls – Santa Barbara Street Medicine. As a nurse practitioner and longtime volunteer, she has spent countless hours caring for people experiencing homelessness, building relationships with patients, and helping shape the Women’s Clinic.
But Jorie’s story with DWW is only one chapter in a life defined by curiosity, compassion, adventure, and a deep commitment to caring for others.
A Calling That Started Early
Jorie’s interest in healthcare began unexpectedly when she was just 14 years old.
Growing up in Iowa and Illinois, Jorie describes herself as a tomboy who loved horses, climbing trees, and being outdoors. After falling from a horse at summer camp and requiring surgery for a serious knee injury, she became fascinated by medicine.
At 16, she began volunteering at Evanston Hospital as a candy striper. Although she enjoyed helping patients, she quickly realized that what fascinated her most was the medicine itself. When she encountered an unfamiliar medical condition at the hospital, she would go home and research it on her own.
Jorie initially wondered whether nursing was right for her. She worried that being emotional when patients died would prevent her from becoming a good nurse. Eventually, however, she came to understand that compassion wasn’t a weakness—it was an essential part of being a good healthcare provider.
That realization would shape the rest of her life.
A Life of Adventure and Service
Jorie’s path into healthcare was anything but conventional.
Before completing her nursing education, she worked as a secretary, lived in New York, traveled through Europe, and even spent time as a “ski bum” in Aspen. Her willingness to follow her curiosity and embrace new experiences became a recurring theme throughout her life.
She eventually returned to California, earned her nursing degree, and became a nurse practitioner. Her career soon took her far beyond traditional clinical settings.
While living in Mali, West Africa, Jorie served as a Peace Corps Medical Officer, caring for Peace Corps volunteers throughout the country. She also temporarily served as the U.S. Embassy nurse and diagnosed malaria after identifying the parasite on a blood smear in the embassy’s health center.
Her career continued to center on underserved communities. In Fresno, she conducted physical examinations for children of migrant farmworkers, often communicating with families in Spanish. She helped establish an out-of-hospital birthing center, worked in labor and delivery, provided newborn home visits, and helped establish a Teen Pregnancy Resource Center for high-risk teenagers.
She also worked with Central Valley Indian Health, traveling to communities to provide care.
Her humanitarian work eventually took her around the world, including healthcare-focused trips to China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malawi, Honduras, and Guatemala.
Finding Doctors Without Walls
After 22 years working at UC Santa Barbara Student Health, Jorie decided it was time for a change.
A colleague suggested that she consider Doctors Without Walls. After taking some time to travel and enjoy life at home, Jorie officially joined DWW in 2011, beginning her journey with the Women’s Clinic.
At the time, the Women’s Clinic was proudly described as a “nurse-run clinic.” Jorie and another nurse cared for patients together, creating a model centered around hands-on care and close relationships with the women they served.
When the clinic eventually found itself without a medical director, Jorie was encouraged to step into the role.
At first, she wasn’t sure.
“No, I don’t think so. I don’t think I can do that,” she recalled thinking.
But after giving it some thought, she decided to step forward.
That decision eventually led her to become DWW’s Medical Director.
More Than Medicine
For Jorie, volunteering has never been only about providing medical care.
What keeps her coming back is the relationships.
She recalls a woman who recently returned to the Women’s Clinic after being away for a long time. When the woman saw Jorie, she wrapped her arms around her and began sharing everything that had happened in her life.
Those moments remind Jorie that healthcare is about much more than diagnoses and treatment.
One patient once told her, “I love coming here because you’re the only place in town that doesn’t treat me like I’m homeless.”
For Jorie, that statement captures something fundamental about DWW’s mission: people deserve to be treated with dignity, regardless of their circumstances.
A Family That Complements Her DWW Life
While Doctors Without Walls has become an important part of Jorie’s life, it is far from the only source of joy and fulfillment.
Jorie is a mother of four and grandmother to eight grandchildren, and family remains at the heart of her life. She says they get together quite often, describing her family as “the complement to my DWW life.”
The two parts of her life—family and service—reflect the same qualities that have guided Jorie throughout her journey: connection, compassion, and a genuine investment in other people.
“We’re All in This Together”
Jorie’s impact was recognized when the California Association of Nurse Practitioners named her their Person of the Year.
But when the women at the DWW clinic heard the news, Jorie says their reaction meant more to her than the award itself.
They clapped. They cheered. They told her she deserved it.
And Jorie was humbled.
She reminded them that the recognition belonged to everyone.
“No one person is any more important than the other,” she said. “We have different jobs. We have different skills. Certainly different kinds of lives… But when it boils down to it, no one person is any more important than anybody else.”
That philosophy seems to define Jorie’s approach to humanitarian work.
Whether caring for a child in Africa, examining children of migrant farmworkers, supporting a woman at the DWW clinic, or working alongside fellow volunteers, she sees healthcare as something built through shared humanity and relationships—not hierarchy.
A Lifetime of Looking Forward
After more than 15 years with Doctors Without Walls and decades of service, Jorie still doesn’t see herself as finished.
“I always look forward,” she says. “When one door closes, another opens. And I think you just have to keep at it and don’t give up.”
Her advice to future healthcare professionals interested in humanitarian work is rooted in the same philosophy that has guided her own life: follow your compassion.
Jorie believes compassion is something innate in all of us. She encourages people who feel that pull toward service to find organizations that allow them to genuinely participate, contribute, and become part of the work.
And perhaps most fittingly for someone whose life has spanned continents, clinical settings, and countless communities, Jorie says she has never stopped believing that there is more out there.
More people to meet.
More places to explore.
More ways to serve.
And, as she puts it, she intends to “die with an active license.”
After a lifetime devoted to caring for others, it’s hard to imagine a more fitting way for Jorie to keep moving forward.
Jorie’s Adventures
Jorie’s life outside the clinic is nearly as adventurous as her career. Among her many adventures, she has traveled extensively around the world, ridden a camel in Tunisia while pregnant, met Elvis Presley, danced with astronaut Neil Armstrong, and explored Papua New Guinea with her daughter.
And then there was the time she unexpectedly found herself in Cairo during the January 2011 Egyptian Revolution.
While visiting Egypt on her way to see her daughter and family in Saudi Arabia, Jorie found herself caught in the unrest that erupted in Cairo on January 25, 2011. After spending a tense night hearing gunfire outside her hotel, she was eventually evacuated from the country with a group of Saudi nationals.
Even on that unexpected journey, Jorie found herself putting her nursing skills to work, helping calm a young
longside fellow volunteers, she sees healthcare as something built through shared humanity and relationships—not hierarchy.
woman experiencing a panic attack during the flight. Later, after learning she was a nurse practitioner, the pilots invited her into the cockpit to see the controls and visit with them.
It’s an incredible story—and perhaps a perfect example of Jorie’s lifelong ability to meet uncertainty with curiosity, compassion, and a willingness to help.
BY Blake Sanchez, DWW Communications Coordinator
