Chamé Blackburn is Head of Department for Emergency Medicine at Whakatāne Hospital, New Zealand. Born in a small town in Arizona, USA, she left and did her training and worked for 14 years at a large academic center in upstate New York. In 2016, she radically changed her career to focus on rural and international work, working in places as diverse as Montana, Vermont, Indian Health Service in Minnesota, and Haiti where she was a recurrent visiting emergency medicine faculty for 4 years with Partners in Health.  In 2018 she permanently moved to New Zealand, where she lives in the beautiful Easter Bay of Plenty. She enjoys spending time with her husband and 6 children, and playing the cello.