Welcome to the Advanced Medical and Public Health Internship

Our first day on campus!!! It marks the beginning of a memorable week, especially because this week, we have TWO Public Health and Medicine Programs. 190 interns, all here to explore their futures in care, wellness, and community. We are so excited about the passion they’re already showing. 

After all of the interns had arrived and settled into their dorms, they were welcomed into the program with a welcome speech by Marshall Bailly, Leadership Initiatives’ Executive Director, who outlined expectations and rules crucial for the success of the interns. Following Marshall’s introduction, the interns were introduced to Dr. Aminu, Dr. Zainab and Dr. Aisha, doctors from New Life Hospital in Bauchi State, Nigeria, who will work closely with the interns this week as they dig into learning about diseases impacting Sub-Saharan Africa, and medicine, treatment, diagnosis, and public health programming. They’ll build their skills and knowledge, work together, and at the end of the week, they’ll present, as a group, a Public Health Workshop on their assigned disease and diagnose a real patient in Nigeria (virtually).    

Following Dr. Yusuf’s introduction to Health Care in Nigeria, interns were introduced to Kat Lewis, Ethan Rhoad, and Lauren Hensel, the three Directors of the Program, and Haarika Bondalapati, the Assistant Director. They met their Workshop Teams and Team Leads, ate dinner together, and then the interns took a bus to the National Mall, where they explored the Lincoln Memorial, the World War 2 memorial, and the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial with their teams for the week. 

This allowed the interns not only the opportunity to reflect on the significance of these historical sites, but also a chance for some sweet and sweaty bonding time with their teams before their introduction to Public Health Programming and their first opportunity to develop their workshops tomorrow (alongside learning how to apply a plaster cast!).