Recent Sterling graduate Rachel Dunham has been accepted to study medicine at the Medical School for International Health. The MSIH is a collaborative medical program of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and Columbia University Medical Center. Dunham was also awarded the Tauber Family scholarship which covers half of her tuition costs based on her academic achievement, demonstrated commitment to international health and medicine and service to underserved communities.
Rachel Dunham’s commitment to global health began at an early age, while living in Nepal where her parents worked for a medical mission. Her passion to help others has earned her a scholarship to study international health and medicine in Israel.
“I want to go to medical school in order to best meet the needs of the community I’m in wherever that may be. There is nothing I would rather do than continue to serve people in a greater capacity as a physician.”
Thanks to a generous gift by the Tauber Family, MSIH has provided four-year scholarships to cover fifty percent of tuition costs for two first-year students each year since 2005. Students are selected based on their academic achievement, demonstrated commitment to international health and medicine, and service to underserved communities.
Rachel earned her undergraduate degree in Chemistry with a minor in Language and Literature from Sterling College in Sterling, Kansas. She excelled in academics while balancing numerous extracurricular activities including being a Resident Assistant and volunteering with Habitat for Humanity. Rachel’s passion for healthcare and caring for those most in need has been evident through her work as an EMT in her hometown of Green River Utah and during school in Kansas. “Through all the opportunities I’ve had to participate in patient care, I have realized how much I love serving people when they are hurting—whether its physically, emotionally, or spiritually.”
The Medical School for International Health is a collaborative initiative to advance global health medical education. It is the only four-year American style medical school in the world that incorporates global health throughout all four years of medical study and culminates with a required international health clerkship in a lesser developed region of the world. The MSIH curriculum includes international health modules and training, through such courses as Nutrition in the Developing World, Infectious and Tropical Diseases, and Global Health and Environment. Now in its eleventh year, the Medical School for International Health enrolls more than 170 students from around the world and has 200 graduates in residency, fellowship, private practice, and research in the US and Canada. After completing residency training, alumni are expected to make significant contributions to global health through clinical work, policy development and medical education.
For more information about the MSIH and Columbia University’s partnership with Ben Gurion University of the Negev in the MSIH, contact the MSIH Admissions Office at (212) 305-9587 or email BGU-MD@columbia.edu.