Growing Ideals

"Grow into your ideals so that life cannot rob you of them." - Albert Schweitzer

My hope is that this year will cultivate those seedling ideals which I already hold. I have always believed in the basic principles of social justice, equality, and the right to health. One personal goal for these months is to take my nascent beliefs and turn them into the kind of lifelong core values that are forged through experience. I would like nothing better than to be marked irrevocably by what I have set out to do, and I hope that I walk away from this year wearing its marks upon my skin.

I will spend the next 10 months of the year living in Lusaka, Zambia, in the southeast of Africa. I will be serving as a Fogarty Scholar, a program which takes around 30 U.S. students in various professional programs and pairs them with an international 'twin,' working in international clinical research projects. My particular work will be carried out at a well-known non-profit research organization, called the Centre for Infectious Disease Research in Zambia (CIDRZ). I will be assisting with a project that is focused on improving Zambia's existing primary care clinic services and community health. During this year, I will be on leave from my stateside life as a medical student at the University of Washington. Feel free to contact me through email or via this blog as my year progresses... I'd love to hear from you!