• Home
• Global Health at Brown
• PHP 1070: Burden of Disease in Developing Countries
• Global Health Courses
• Global Health Lecture Series
• Faculty Research
• Mentored Research Experiences
• Student Theses
• Student Co-Authors
• Funding Opportunities
• Framework in Global Health
• The Foreign Studies Fellowship Program
• Application
• Academic Credit
• Jury Members
• Recent Fellowships
• Useful Websites

Global Health at Brown: One Student's Perspective

April 21st, 2009

The medical school application process was frustrating and difficult, but managing it from Zimbabwe, where I had no access to telephones or email, complicated things that much more. That being said, I suppose that it was fitting that, upon being accepted to Brown in March of 2006, the Admissions Office (in contrast to other schools) offered to find me housing, handle my registration, and in general, manage the rest of the matriculation process for me. …It was, perhaps, an indication of how supportive Brown would be of my international work in the coming years.

Given that I originally decided to come to medical school to train in international health care, and that my career plans are focused largely on primary care in the sub-Saharan context, it seems far too appropriate that I am a student at Brown. Since coming here, I have often been struck by how fortunate I am: speaking to friends at other medical schools, it is humbling to realize the difficulties that many of my colleagues face at their own institutions while trying to get international work approved, much less paid for, as so often happens here at Brown.

Upon first arriving here in 2006, I was amazed to find that my very first clinical placement, in the first-year Doctoring program, was with an infectious disease specialist who also happens to be the Asian regional director for the Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative. Quickly though, I realized that many of the faculty at Brown were deeply committed to international health care, and found myself surrounded by an incredible wealth of faculty support and mentorship.

Having been a member of the initial class of the Global Health Scholarly Concentration, I have been able to watch as Brown has scaled-up its efforts to support international health over the past several years. I remember being surprised that, during my first year here, I was able to have my plane tickets to Zimbabwe paid for by the Foreign Studies Fellowship, and that I could receive extra funding for research and living expenses through several other institutional grants. Then, in 2008, when the NIH/Fogarty-supported Framework in Global Health was announced, I was pleasantly surprised yet again, finding myself with even more institutional support for my work.

While there are certainly other, non-University-affiliated sources for supporting international health work, I know that many medical students at other schools struggle to find faculty and financial support for even a single international elective. In the past three years since coming to Brown, I have been able to return to Zimbabwe twice and also spent a significant period of time working at a rural health clinic in Western Mexico. All of this work has been strongly supported by my faculty mentors and funded in full by the University. To be understated, I consider myself extremely privileged to benefit from such support; without the academic backing of the faculty and the financial assistance of the University, my work would simply not be possible.

Dan Schwarz, MD / MPH Candidate
Alpert School of Medicine, Brown University, Class of 2011
Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard University, Class of 2010