Alumni Association - College of Medicine

"While I have attempted to detail as much of this experience as possible and provide a framework for my rotation these past two months, a great deal cannot be adequately described here. I feel so fortunate to have been given the opportunity to further my training as a physician in such an intimate context with these people. The children and the adults who run the Home of Hope were fantastically caring, intelligent and welcoming; I learned first-hand what it is like to be a patient in the third world. I was able to talk with, hold, and treat patients affected by a major humanitarian disaster. Having grown up abroad in Japan and traveled throughout much of Asia, this was still the most unique travel and international experience of my life. Plus, with this and a month with the Himalayan Health Exchange during the summer after my first year of medical school, my career plans as a future pediatrician have undoubtedly been altered."
Ryan Kearney

"My six week overseas elective was done in Nigeria, West Africa. Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa with about 15 million people living there. Nigeria was an obvious country for me to go to do my overseas elective because this is the country in which I was born and where I desired growing up to be a medical doctor. Growing up in Nigeria, I knew that the health care system in the country was very poor. Having had personal accounts of inadequate health care delivery before leaving the country and being determined that I would want to make a difference in the country, my family and I embarked on our journey to the United States at the age of 16yrs ago. Now, being a 4th year medical student, and developing the skills necessary to be of help in hospitals in Nigeria, I knew that the overseas elective would give me the opportunity that I need to be able to look at health care delivery from a medical professional's point of view and be able to adequately compare and contract health care delivery in the U.S. to that in Nigeria and thereby be able to make changes."
Toluwumi Jegedet

"I was excited to be a part of this elective and have the opportunity to spend six weeks of my medical school training as part of the health care team in a developing country. My reasons for choosing Barbados were: I lived there for the first 18 years of my life, and since my mother and other close family members and friends still resided there, it would be the opportunity to provide medical care to many of the people who made significant contributions to my education and upbringing."
Leroy Phillips