Alumna spotlight: Keeping care close to home
by Carrie Circosta
When a child needs to be hospitalized, sending them to a hospital hours away can add another burden for a family already facing a stressful situation. Nadia Asif, M.D. ('19), is helping more families in Erie, Pennsylvania, and surrounding communities receive the pediatric care they need closer to home.
As a pediatric hospitalist at AHN Saint Vincent Hospital, Dr. Asif is part of a growing pediatric presence that has expanded the hospital's ability to care for children with more complex medical needs.
Before she arrived in Erie in 2022, the hospital had one inpatient pediatrician, with family medicine physicians helping cover the service. Today, Dr. Asif works alongside a team of pediatricians providing dedicated coverage.
“Now that we are covering the whole service, we feel more comfortable taking care of more complex cases,” Dr. Asif said. “We don't have to transfer them to Pittsburgh or somewhere far away.”
That matters for families throughout the region. Some of Dr. Asif's patients travel an hour or two to reach Erie, including families from the area's Amish communities. For them, Saint Vincent may already be the closest option before having to travel to an even larger city.
The team's presence also provides another resource for emergency physicians deciding whether a child can safely remain at Saint Vincent or requires a higher level of care elsewhere.
Expanding access—and teaching others
Dr. Asif's impact isn't limited to the hospital.
One of the accomplishments she's most proud of is restarting an outpatient pediatric clinic that had previously closed because of staffing limitations. Working with Saint Vincent's family medicine residency program, Dr. Asif and residents now see children for well-child visits, vaccinations, sports physicals and other routine needs.
“I think that's been helpful for the residents' education and for those kids who otherwise would have to wait longer to get an appointment,” she said.
Teaching, in fact, has become another important part of Dr. Asif's career. Family medicine residents learn pediatrics alongside her, and medical students from Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine rotate through the hospital, where she serves as an adjunct clinical assistant professor in pediatrics.
For Dr. Asif, teaching feels familiar. She tutored other students while still in high school and continued working and volunteering with children as an undergraduate.
Her current role allows that interest to have a broader impact. As family medicine residents become more comfortable treating children, they can carry that knowledge into the communities where they eventually practice.
“I think it just reinforced that I like teaching,” Dr. Asif said. “It's something that I want to continue to do throughout my career.”
An early start in medicine
Dr. Asif knew remarkably early that medicine was where she belonged.
At 15, she applied to NEOMED's former combined B.S./M.D. program through Kent State University. She graduated from high school at 16 and began taking summer classes at Kent State several weeks before her high school graduation ceremony. After completing two years at Kent State, she entered NEOMED at 18.
What she didn't know yet was what kind of physician she wanted to become.
Dr. Asif kept her options open throughout medical school, participating in different specialty interest groups and using her clinical rotations to discover which work drew her in most naturally.
One experience made the answer particularly clear.
“When I was on my OB-GYN rotation and I was seeing the moms who were delivering babies, I would always feel like I wanted to go more with the newborn baby than stay with the mom,” she recalled. “I felt like that made me realize, yeah, I think pediatrics is the specialty for me.”
After graduating from NEOMED in 2019, Dr. Asif completed her pediatric residency at Stony Brook Children's Hospital in New York before moving to Erie.
It's an experience she now draws on when advising today's medical students.
“Keep an open mind going into medical school and going into your clerkships,” she said. “Listen to yourself and your heart and where it's telling you that you want to go.”
Making a difference in Erie
Dr. Asif's work recently earned recognition beyond the hospital. She was named one of the Erie Reader's 2026 40 Under 40, an annual recognition of young people helping shape the future of the Erie community.
For Dr. Asif, the honor is less about individual recognition than what it might encourage others to do.
“I just felt honored that I was recognized for the work that I'm doing here in Erie,” she said. “I hope that other people who read my profile and the profiles of the other 39 people will be inspired to help their community in their own way, too.”
For Dr. Asif, that contribution is happening one child, one family and one future physician at a time.