June 5, 2007
For people who don't know me, I'm Shanon Peter. I'm a 23-year-old medical student at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, NJ and a long-time resident of the Garden State (don't get me started on the irony). I'm a graduate of Morris Hills High School in Rockaway, NJ (2001) and of Harvard College (2005), as well as an "alum" of the Harvard Initiative for Global Health (Fellowship, 2005-06).
Aside from e-mail, school work, and some Facebook, I've never been a huge Internet user. Accordingly, this is my first blog post ever - but I am hoping it'll become a sustainable habit. Starting one of these is something I've been meaning to do for a while but never quite got around to. Finally, I have a solid reason for doing so, coupled with ample time to do it. That is, I'll be departing tomorrow for Lilongwe, Malawi in southeastern Africa, for what will be my longest foreign trip ever - close to two months. Actually, I was supposed to leave last Tuesday but bronchitis kept me at bay. (Mostly thanks to the assault on my body that was a memorial day weekend down the NJ shore with many of my old fraternity brothers... thanks guys. Nonetheless, the weekend was worth it, and this week after recovering gave me some much-needed time with my family.)
While in Malawi, I'll be working at the recently-opened Malawi Center of Excellence for pediatric HIV/AIDS, started and operated by the Baylor College of Medicine. During the weekdays, I'll be in the hospital from about 7-5; during the weekends, I might pursue a research project or go on excursions (I'm hoping to make it to Victoria Falls). I am forever interested in the intersection of social justice and medicine; and my late college and medical school coursework has piqued my interest in the field of emerging infectious and opportunistic diseases- many for which the HIV epidemic has opened the door. So upon considering my options for what those in the medical profession forebodingly call "the last summer of one's life" (the summer between the first and second years of med school), I thought that this would be the perfect fit. Let's hope I was right!
For people who don't know me, I'm Shanon Peter. I'm a 23-year-old medical student at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, NJ and a long-time resident of the Garden State (don't get me started on the irony). I'm a graduate of Morris Hills High School in Rockaway, NJ (2001) and of Harvard College (2005), as well as an "alum" of the Harvard Initiative for Global Health (Fellowship, 2005-06).
Aside from e-mail, school work, and some Facebook, I've never been a huge Internet user. Accordingly, this is my first blog post ever - but I am hoping it'll become a sustainable habit. Starting one of these is something I've been meaning to do for a while but never quite got around to. Finally, I have a solid reason for doing so, coupled with ample time to do it. That is, I'll be departing tomorrow for Lilongwe, Malawi in southeastern Africa, for what will be my longest foreign trip ever - close to two months. Actually, I was supposed to leave last Tuesday but bronchitis kept me at bay. (Mostly thanks to the assault on my body that was a memorial day weekend down the NJ shore with many of my old fraternity brothers... thanks guys. Nonetheless, the weekend was worth it, and this week after recovering gave me some much-needed time with my family.)
While in Malawi, I'll be working at the recently-opened Malawi Center of Excellence for pediatric HIV/AIDS, started and operated by the Baylor College of Medicine. During the weekdays, I'll be in the hospital from about 7-5; during the weekends, I might pursue a research project or go on excursions (I'm hoping to make it to Victoria Falls). I am forever interested in the intersection of social justice and medicine; and my late college and medical school coursework has piqued my interest in the field of emerging infectious and opportunistic diseases- many for which the HIV epidemic has opened the door. So upon considering my options for what those in the medical profession forebodingly call "the last summer of one's life" (the summer between the first and second years of med school), I thought that this would be the perfect fit. Let's hope I was right!
