Hi, everyone! My name is Annie. I'm from outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which is also where I went to undergrad (at Ursinus College) and majored in Biology and minored in Applied Ethics. My interest in taking this course stems from my interest in health disparities in our communities, and what we can do to solve these disparities. I believe that health care is a fundamental human right, that every HUMAN should have access to.
My first taste of both global medicine and seeing health disparities in the flesh was 3 years ago on a mission trip to a rural town in the Dominican Republic. While there, my group was able to shadow in the clinics/hospitals to see medicine from that perspective, but we also did a lot of public health work, which included going from door to door, and explaining to people in this town what HIV/AIDS was, and how to prevent it.
From this point, I knew that I wanted to somehow integrate global health, and caring for the underserved population into my practice as a physician. I think this class will help to foster my critical thinking skills to solve the population-based problems regarding health we will be faced with in our careers. I'm additionally very excited to get the perspectives of the international medical students, and listen to the different ideas and approaches they have in regard to fixing population-based health issues.