Jill Afrin

Jill Afrin (born 1962) is a psychiatrist who specializes in working with deaf populations in South Carolina, and is also credited as the first telepsychiatrist in the state.

Biography Afrin was born in Suffern, New York in 1962. Jeanette Newman, her mother was a social worker, public relation counselor, and a journalist while Edward Newman worked as a crime reporter who died when she was 4 years old.

Afrin earned her undergraduate degree in biochemistry from State University of New York at Binghamton in 1984. The same year Afrin enrolled into Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. After graduating with her medical degree, Dr. Afrin completed an internship and residency in psychiatry at the Medical University of South Carolina. She was later awarded a fellowship in community and emergency psychiatry in 1992. Throughout college and medical training she learned sign language which she later on applied in her career. This allowed her to see about 10 patients each week. This method of treating patients using telecommunication, called telepsychiatry, was therefore initiated through Afrin's efforts, making her the first telepsychiatrist in the state.

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