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Mengyi Zha

I have always wanted to work with homeless populations. The Schwartz fellowship gives me an opportunity to work with experienced mentors, who understand the community and its needs much better than I, to take that first step to achieving my goal of caring for the homeless. The fellowship is both community-service and education oriented, which is a perfect place for me to begin: I can start with learning about and continuing to serve the community and contribute to the enrichment of Geisel curriculum at the same time. I am certain much will be accomplished from this fellowship in understanding and serving the community as part of medical education.

My project is focused on community service. I will work with local organizations to help me answer the following questions: Who are the homeless population in the Upper Valley area? Why are they homeless? What are their characteristics? What can we do as medical students to provide them with care? In an extension to that, I am looking into a possible proposal for an elective that would provide Geisel students with opportunities to learn from individuals in the community who are homeless or poor. For instance, during a three-week period, pair up a medical student with a homeless individual for the student to learn about him or her in order to understand poverty and what can be done about it.