As two Wake Forest University School of Medicine students in Charlotte train to become physicians, they are also working to provide free volunteer doula support to patients during labor through their service project as North Carolina Albert Schweitzer Fellows.
The fellowship selected 31 graduate students for the class of 2026-27, including Iyra Chandra and Colette Haynie, MD students at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Charlotte.
NC Schweitzer Fellows design and implement year-long community service projects focused on addressing gaps in healthcare access, while meeting their academic obligations. Each project is carried out in partnership with a community-based organization. Fellows pair with both community and academic mentors throughout the year, helping students continue their development as leaders and role models.
In Greater Charlotte, Chandra and Haynie are launching a volunteer-based birth doula program to provide continuous emotional and physical support to laboring patients at no cost.
North Carolina’s rate of maternal mortality is higher than the national average, and the presence of birth doulas has been shown to improve maternal and infant outcomes, especially in communities of color that experience disproportionate maternal health challenges.
To meet that need, the volunteer-based birth doula program will start in labor and delivery at Atrium Health Cabarrus. Medical and nursing students will be trained to be birth doula volunteers by community doulas and other healthcare professionals. The volunteer doulas will start serving patients in fall 2026.
This project is an expansion of the Deacon Doulas program in Winston-Salem, which began as an original Schweitzer Fellowship project, by Abby Peoples and Callie Ollish, that continues today at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center.
Last year, Chandra and Haynie both served on the program's student leadership group in Winston-Salem. They were trained as doulas from teammates across various specialties, nurses, midwives and community doulas, and gained insight from national research studies linking continuous labor support to improving patient outcomes.
Since moving to Charlotte for their third-year rotations, they've identified a similar community need in the area. They are now looking to explore ways that their volunteer birth doula program can provide support the women and infants in the local community.
“This is a way to bring a similar labor support program to Charlotte,” Chandra says. “Colette and I are both passionate about improving maternal health outcomes and ensuring all patients receive compassionate, high-quality support. We also saw this as an opportunity for medical students to engage with patients earlier in their education.”
For Haynie, serving these patients is an aspiration she's had for years, inspired by her late great-grandmother, who worked as a midwife for decades, and provided labor and delivery care to African American women prior to when hospitals were integrated.
Haynie's initial exposure to healthcare began when she started working at a physical therapy clinic on a summer break from high school. By the time she entered college, she became a certified physical therapy technician, where she guided patients through difficult and often painful exercises to assist them in their recoveries from injuries and surgeries. This experience also encouraged her to become a doula, as she enjoyed working closely with patients toward a shared outcome.
During college, Haynie participated in the Cultivating Opportunity and Realizing Excellence Leadership Program through Georgetown University School of Medicine, which focused on exposing pre-medical students to gaps in healthcare access and outcomes. Haynie says the stark disproportions in maternal mortality rates were something that she couldn’t ignore.
Chandra says she grew up advocating for the sexual and reproductive health of women in her family, which helped pique her interest in uplifting patient voices and providing health education to women. She advocated for an equitable gender pay gap and conducted research on community programs supporting opioid-exposed mothers and infants. Prior to medical school, she also worked at a free OB/GYN clinic and as a coordinator on gynecological oncology trials improving accessibility to patients that faced barriers to care. Her motivation for pursuing a medical career stemmed from wanting to support women who face health inequities and working to mitigate these disparities in the local community.
Both medical students have worked or volunteered in various healthcare settings that inspired them to help improve women's health and maternal outcomes. Their experiences becoming a doula in medical school and working directly with patients as part of a volunteer labor support program were monumental in building their own passions, career goals and learning how to be better advocates for patients facing barriers to care.
“Doulas are associated with fewer birth complications and more positive labor experiences and the idea behind doing a birth doula volunteer program is that we're an extra set of hands that can mitigate some of these challenging moments for patients and really stand up and listen to them,” says Chandra. “Doulas were traditionally a private service that was not covered by insurance and was largely out of pocket, which made it inaccessible to most patients. Our goal is to be a free resource for any patient who might want someone or might be alone during the laboring process.”
"Our primary goal is for our volunteers to serve as sources of continuous emotional support for laboring patients," says Haynie. "Doulas are uniquely positioned to serve patients in a truly muti-faceted way. We can offer hands on techniques such as counter pressure to ease labor pains, guide patients through movement and position changes, and work with their healthcare team to advocate for their needs. Serving as a volunteer doula allows us to support patients and has taught me so much about what patient centered care really means. Being part of this organization in Winston Salem has been such a meaningful part of my medical school experience and we’re so excited to bring the program to Charlotte."
The doula initiative at Wake Forest University School of Medicine demonstrates the unique experiences students receive that prepare them to be even better doctors to their patients. Students are leading the way addressing the health needs of our communities, while enriching their own medical school journeys and gaining critical skills to prepare for their future careers.