Barack Obama and Haiti

I GRADUATED via an exciting ceremony that received national attention. And I was a small part of that...this fox news story was apparently shown around the country as my friend in Albuquerque commented that she saw me on the evening news a couple months ago. Here is the local written report: Fox news report

Anyway, senior week and graduation went by in a blur. Despite my premeditated boycott of most of the planned activities I only managed to get in about an hour of actual relaxation (sitting in the sun reading a book, which cost me my first sunburn of the summer). Thursday started the awards ceremonies and departmental functions which continued through Sunday morning, Friday night my entire family arrived, and then Sunday afternoon was the actual graduation ceremony. Security was a mess...I had to wait in line for over an hour and a half just to enter the ceremony. Luckily I was standing in line with my friend Patrick Tucker, the recently crowned College Jeopardy champion, so he helped to pass the time. While I was not exactly surprised to make it to graduation from Notre Dame, it was still surreal to be sitting in the JACC listening to the President of the US send us off and then bless us alongside Fr. Jenkins.

Graduating may not be surprising, but having definite plans for the next five (potentially six) years is notable. There were times when I seriously doubted if I could have everything figured out by May 15, but I pulled it out. After a long, difficult discernment process I like to call "Vanderbilt vs. Dartmouth" I finally decided that I will attend Vanderbilt University Medical School. They are also wonderfully allowing me to defer matriculation for one year, so I will begin med school in the fall of 2010.

For the next year I will be volunteering as a science teacher at Louverture Cleary school in Haiti through a Catholic misssion called the Haitian Project. It is a rural area just northeast of the capital Port-Au-Prince called Croix-des-Bouquets, about 13 kilometers away. After careful consideration, I decided that now was the best time to actual try living in a developing nation for more than a couple months...I also wanted a life-shaping experience that will inform my medical education for the long years of study ahead. I do not want to forget my committment to global health or lose my idealism prematurely. And I figured this is my last chance to volunteer in a non-medical setting. I am excited to become a physician, but I do have other talents and interests, too, so I am going to use those for a bit. I am going to start looking for donations of lab supplies as the school is trying to revamp a laboratory science program that I will be helping with...any ideas?

I have orientation in early July and then I leave August 9...I will update with new information as I receive it. Haitian Project

"we're doing the best with what we've got"