Vision
The SCHPCA will be a coalition of health professionals dedicated to addressing the public health crisis of rapid climate change in order to create just and equitable climate action.
Mission
The SCHPCA will act to educate the public and health professionals on the impact of climate change on health, to advocate for state policy focused on mitigation, adaptation, and equity, and to collaborate with state and national groups as health professionals have the ability and the duty to approach rapid climate change as the key public health issue of our times.
Steering Committee Members
Hayley Guilkey MD, FAAP
Dr. Hayley Guilkey is a practicing general pediatrician at Little River Medical Center. She completed her Medical Degree at Indiana University School of Medicine. She did her residency training in Pediatrics at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. She is a South Carolina AAP Advocate for Climate, Chair of the SCAAP Climate Sub-committee and the founder of the South Carolina Health Professionals for Climate Action.
contact: hayley@schealthclimate.org
Deandra Clark, MD, FAAP
Dr. Deandra Clark practices General Pediatrics at AnMed Health’s Children’s Health Center in Anderson, SC. She is an Assistant Professor at MUSC, teaching medical students and family medicine residents at AnMed Health. She is lead clinician at AnMed for the South Carolina American Academy of Pediatrics (SCAAP) QTIP grant (Quality Through Technology and Innovation in Pediatrics). She is a graduate of Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, GA. She completed her Pediatric and Pediatric Chief Residencies at the University of South Florida. She serves on the Board at DCEC (the Developmental Center for Exceptional Children). She is a SC AAP advocate for climate change.
Elizabeth (Liz) Tyson, MD
Dr. Elizabeth “Liz” Tyson received her MD from the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston. She completed her pediatric residency training at the University of Utah Hospitals and Primary Children’s Medical Center in Salt Lake City. She worked as a pediatric hospitalist in Salt Lake City for several years prior to returning to her home state of South Carolina in 2007. Since that time she has been a been a member of the pediatric residency faculty at Prisma Health-Upstate in Greenville. Dr. Tyson primarily practices as a pediatric hospitalist and is board certified in both General Pediatrics and Pediatric Hospital Medicine. Dr. Tyson also precepts students from the University of SC School of Medicine—Greenville during their pediatric clerkship rotations.
Brandon Emery, MD
Dr. Brandon Emery received his MD from the Medical University of South Carolina and completed his residency in pediatrics at the Medical College of Georgia. He has been a practicing pediatrician in the midlands of South Carolina for the past ten years. During that time, Brandon has been involved in resident and medical student education and is currently chair of pediatrics at Lexington Medical Center. He is completing the Yale School of Public Health’s Climate Change and Health Certificate and has interest in education for the health community and in policy advocacy for the health of South Carolinians.
Erin Smith, MD
Erin Smith is a general community pediatrician with Grand Strand Pediatrics, in the Myrtle Beach area. She grew up in Richmond, VA and Minneapolis, MN. She completed both medical school and her general pediatrics/adolescent medicine residency in Rochester, MN, at Mayo Medical School/ Mayo School of Graduate Medical Education. Erin has lived in SC for the last 13 years. She likes to spend her down time at the beach or on the river with her husband and three amazing kids.
Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health Consultant
Jerome A. Paulson, MD, FAAP
Dr. Paulson is Emeritus Professor of Pediatrics and Emeritus Professor of Environmental & Occupational Health at the George Washington University Schools of Medicine and of Public Health. He created the American Academy of Pediatrics Program on Climate Change and Health. He is a consultant to the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health and is a founding member of Virginia Clinicians for Climate Action. He is a past chair of the executive committee of the Council on Environmental Health of the AAP and past Medical Director for the Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Units – East. Dr. Paulson served on the Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee for the US EPA. He co-created, and for a number of years lead, the Mid-Atlantic Center for Children’s Health & the Environment. Dr. Paulson received his MD degree from Duke University in Durham, NC, and did his pediatric residency at the Johns Hopkins Hospitals and Sinai Hospital in Baltimore, MD. He also completed a fellowship in Ambulatory Pediatrics at Sinai Hospital.
South Carolina Health Professionals for Climate Action 