Refugees, who often fled violence and instability to come to the US for a better life, face daunting challenges in obtaining citizenship. Many have disabling medical conditions which prevent them from completing the language and civic exams as part of their application. NC Schweitzer Fellows Yousef Abu-Salha and Nicole Damari are leading a medical-legal team which … Read more

The Office of International Activities is excited to announce the first cohort of Global Health Scholarly Concentration students! The UNC School of Medicine offers scholarly concentrations for first year medical students in several disciplines in medicine, such as Care of the Older Patient, Physician Leadership in Quality and Safety, Technology in Medicine, and Community Service, … Read more

“UNC is an excellent place to be at. You often read about UNC being one of the top medical schools in the country, and when you’re actually here you realize why they mean that. I think it’s because academics is so ingrained into clinical practice are every level. Everyone who is at the hospital is learning, the residents, students and fellows are all learning.”
— Shivani Wadnerkar – Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute (India)

Yale University in partnership with Unite for Sight is delighted to announce the expert panel sessions which will be featured at the 16th annual Global Health & Innovation Conference at Yale on April 13-14, 2019. The Global Health & Innovation Conference convenes nearly 2,000 participants and more than 300 presentations about global health, responsible global engagement, social … Read more

“The advice that I would want to give would be to take things one step at a time guys and to not overthink about how you are performing in your elective. Just remember that you’re here to learn and focus on the learning part and honestly everything else just falls into place.”
— Muhammad Dawood Sheikh – The Aga Khan University (Pakistan)

“This is my third elective in the States and has definitely been the best so far. The reason I say this, is because UNC has a good patient load, I saw a variety of cases and got sufficient hands on experience both on the liver and luminal side. I got the opportunity to see procedures I had just read about in books”
— Simranjit Kaur – Kasturba Medical College, Manipal (India)

Erica Bjornstad, MD, MPH
Global Health Scholar
PGY3, Pediatric Nephrology

“[My residents] treated me like an actual intern and not like a student. Even though it was tough in the beginning it was very helpful to boost up my confidence and get an idea of what it would be like to be a resident in the United State. I ended up doing a lot of work because they pushed me to it. This made me realize that I can fit it into the system. ”
— Noor Shoukat – Shifa College of Medicine (Pakistan)

“I think it’s important for medical students doing surgery to know that it’s not just the residents you learn from. It’s also the nurses and everyone else. You must introduce yourself and write your name on the board so people can help you. They are going to teach you a lot beyond what is happening in the surgery.”
— Samia Ellias, Topiwala National Medical College (India)

Former International Visiting Student and now Post-Doctoral Fellow, Apoorve Nayyar, presented research regarding sexual harassment among women surgeons. While the study is not yet published, it has won the 2019 Association for Academic Surgeons Best Overall Abstract Award, the 2019 AAS Outstanding Resident Research Award for Outcomes, and the Society of Asian Academic Surgeons best Academic Surgical Congress (ASC) Abstract Award.

“This has been a great experience for me and has been new for me. We are here 5 days a week, we do research and read about it. And then finally we go to the clinics and see the patients and they are exactly how we read it.”
— Sherley Chhibber, Mahatma Gandhi Medical College (India)

“The entire nephrology team is very thorough with their patient work up. I learned how to analyze urine samples and was also able to witness the placement of a dialysis catheter. The rotation also helped me polish my case presentation skills.”
— Nishad Barve, Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences (India)