Meet the Scholars
Mina Ghaly
Mina was born and raised in Cairo, Egypt where he then moved to Massachusetts at the age of 12 to attend middle school and high school there. He graduated from 2008 from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst where he majored in Biology and Molecular Biology and Biochemistry. He is now in his first year at Dartmouth Medical School. His interest in urban medicine started from witnessing how low access to health care affected the populations in Egypt and he continued that interest by volunteering in various hospitals in Boston. Although his future career path is still open, he has an interest in surgery and in international medicine. In his spare time, he likes to follow the Patriots, Red Sox and Celtics and he also enjoys traveling.
Bilal Mahmood
Bilal is from Clifton Park, NY and graduated as a mathematics and physics major from Union College in June 2008. While at Union, Bilal was involved in a number of activities, including radio astronomy research, serving on student government, tutoring, and working as a resident advisor and EMT on campus. He also spent a mini-term abroad in Egypt and volunteered in New Orleans after hurricane Katrina. At Dartmouth, Bilal is currently a first year student. With regards to medicine, he is unsure of what path to take, and he is starting his first year with an open mind. In the future, he wants to work in urban and international environments. As a member of UHS, Bilal wants to improve urban opportunities for current and future DMS students. He also wants to raise awareness of urban issues in health care that may not be stressed otherwise.
Mary Kate Rod
Mary Kate is originally from Connecticut and graduated from Boston College, where she was involved in BC's sketch comedy troop and Nicaraguan Immersion Program. After graduating, she spent two years working and living in rural communities in Haiti, Nicaragua and on Taos Pueblo Reservation in New Mexico, helping organize community members around voluntary schools house construction projects. Afterwards, she moved to Boston, MA and worked for a number of years as an advocate for people who were chronically homeless and moving from shelters into permanent housing. Mary Kate is now in her first year of medical school, and is excited to be a part of UHS. She is interested in issues regarding housing and homelessness, international development and immigration. She also loves trail running, hiking and rivers and is happy to be living in the Upper Valley.
David Wenger
David is a native of Oakland, CA. After completing his undergraduate degree at UC Berkeley in 2006, he spent much of the last two years trying to get outside of the textbook and gain some life experience in the arena of urban health. For a little over a year he worked as an Emergency Medical Technician for the 911service provider in Los Angeles County, and then had the pleasure to work in Central America as a member of the International Health Service. While abroad David was part of a team which establish a functional clinic in the small village of Yaruca, Honduras, a town which prior to their arrival had not had a resident physician in over 15 years. Upon returning to the Bay Area this past summer, he took a position with the First Tee organization, a foundation which works with underprivileged kids and uses the game of golf as a means to teach crucial life lessons intended to transcend sport. Now that David is at Dartmouth, he is excited to have this opportunity to be part of the Urban Health Scholars program, and looks forward to learning more about the many unique social and health concerns that face urban communities both domestically and abroad.
Kimberly Cartmill
Kimberly is from Wappingers Falls, NY and graduated from State University of New York at Albany in May 2007. She is entering her second year at Dartmouth Medical School. While she is still unsure of her career path, she would like to do an Internal Medicine residency in New York City. After practicing in this field, she is planning on entering an Infectious Disease fellowship. As part of UHS, she is interested in obtaining more urban clinical experiences for DMS students. It is important that DMS students receive adequate training to work in underserved cities. She would also like to expand some of the Spanish speaking programs at the medical school to help prepare students to practice medicine with a diverse population.
Nisha Jambulingam
Nisha is a second year medical student from Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. She completed her B.A. in Neuroscience at The Johns Hopkins University, and a one year post-baccalaureate training fellowship at the National Institute of Child Health and Development.
Her interest in urban health is comprehensive, yet with a special interest in the cultural dynamics of medicine. Clinical urban experiences include an Emergency Medicine rotation at Children's Hospital in Detroit, Michigan, a Psychiatry rotation at Madras Medical College in Madras, India, a Transplant Surgery rotation at Johns Hopkins University, and a Pediatrics rotation focused on childhood obesity at NewYork Presbyterian Hospital in underserved areas of upper Manhattan. Her research-based urban experiences include studying the effects of health disparities in organ transplantation and studying differences in spatial cognition abilities among children of different ages both projects being in the Baltimore community. In the summer of 2008, Nisha traveled to Cape Town, South Africa to conduct a service project oriented towards improving the quality of life of AIDS orphans.
Regarding future ambitions, Nisha is keeping her options open and exploring various specialties. However, her recent experiences have sparked an interest in child health.
Patricio Roman
Pat was born in St. Lucia from Chilean parents, raised in Venezuela, and is now a US citizen. The youngest of three kids, Pat attended high school in Caracas, Venezuela, and graduated in 1999. One year later he moved to Orlando, Florida where he lived with his parents before joining the US Army. After serving for 4 years and participating in operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom Pat was honorably discharged and started his path to becoming a doctor. He obtained his A.A. in General Studies at Valencia Community College and later his B.S. in Molecular Biology and Microbiology at the University of Central Florida. Being raised in an urban environment, Pat was a first hand witness to the problems that affect this population, and once he chose to become a physician he decided to do his part in helping those who he saw suffering as he grew up.
Liz Killien
Liz is from Seattle, WA, and is a 2006 graduate of Williams College. At Williams, she majored in political science with a focus on international relations, and minored in neuroscience. She studied abroad in Copenhagen during her junior year of college, living with a Danish family and studying European Union politics and Scandinavian health care and medicine. She also rowed for four years on the Williams crew team, which won the Div. III NCAA championship her senior year. After graduating, Liz worked as a clinical research associate in pediatric orthopedic surgery at Seattle Children's Hospital, and completed research projects on diabetes at Seattle's Harborview Medical Centerand on health care access at a local community clinic.
Liz's interest in urban health stems from her work at these large urban medical centers, and her desire to experience the diversity in clientele and health conditions encountered in urban settings. As a member of UHS, she hopes to work on projects involving homelessness and health care access, learn more about effective cross-cultural health care provision, and bring speakers and events to Dartmouth to expose other DMS students to issues in urban health. Liz is also a member of the Patient Partners program, is a co-leader of the Pediatrics Interest Group, and through a Schweitzer Fellowship is developing an outdoor activities and education program for at-risk middle school students. She enjoys hiking, biking, cross-country skiing, and running, and is currently training for a triathlon.
Katie Au
Katie is a San Francisco native and a graduate of Oberlin College where she majored in Neuroscience, played libero on the volleyball team, and threw the javelin for the track & field team. After graduation, Katie moved back to San Francisco to work at UCSF and San Francisco General Hospital. She worked on studies evaluating health care status and outcomes of the homeless and marginally housed and also led a study on physician hospital admission decisions of homeless patients entering the Emergency Room. Katie has many interests in minority health and in care for the underserved. At Dartmouth, Katie sings in the Dermatones a capella group, is a member of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day planning committee, works on a mental health project at the Good Neighbor free clinic in White River Junction, VT, and plays in a co-ed volleyball league with other medical students and residents. She also enjoys stained glass artwork, singing, various ethnic foods, finding new ways to be green, the outdoors, frequenting the local farmer's markets, and just about any sport.
Rajesh Ramanathan
Rajesh was born in Bangalore, India, and studied Molecular & Cellular Biology and Philosophy at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. At Dartmouth Medical School, Rajesh has had the opportunity to be involved in a number of organizations including the American Medical Students Association, the Public Health Policy and Advocacy Committee and the Urban Health Scholars Program. Some of his interests include exploring unique issues of underserved youth, HIV/AIDS in urban communities and refugee populations, and international development. Through the Urban Health Scholars program, he intends to further explore these issues and contribute through learning and service.
Umbareen Mahmood
Umbar was born and raised in Short Hills, NJ and graduated from Dartmouth College in 2006 where she majored in Psychology and Brain Sciences. During her undergraduate studies, she dedicated a significant amount of time to her roles as Senior Interviewer on the Admissions Committee, Civic Intern at the Tucker Foundation, the Presidential Scholar program, and as an undergraduate advisor. She participated in research at NYU Medical School and was also a Cancer Research Training Scholar at the NIH-NCI. One of her most significant and life-altering experiences was traveling to Rawalpindi, Pakistan with an international healthcare team through the International Children's Heart Foundation, an organization whose mission is to perform critical surgery on children with congenital heart disease and educate healthcare professionals in foreign institutions. She spent the summer following her first year of medical school as a research fellow at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in NY and notes that it was a wonderful experience in which she was able to explore various facets of the medical field. At Dartmouth Medical School she served on the Admissions Committee, and is involved in Physicians for Human Rights and the American Medical Association. Umbareen is enthusiastic about being involved in the UHS program as she hopes to serve as a physician in underserved urban communities and in international settings in the future. She believes that exposure to urban health issues provides indispensable insight and skill in being able to communicate and understand individuals of all backgrounds, as well as increases awareness of the unique cultural, social, and environmental elements that are fundamentally associated with being able to provide medical care for any individual.
Leslie Claracay
Leslie is from Orlando, FL, where she graduated from Bishop Moore Catholic High School in 2003. In 2006, she graduated from Georgetown University with a Biology degree. At Georgetown, Leslie was an EMT for the Georgetown Emergency Response Medical Service, CPR Instructor, intern for Senator Mel Martinez, member of Club Filipino, peer advisor, and TA in biology, biochemistry and calculus. She also loves playing volleyball, playing the piano, practicing yoga, running, learning languages, and traveling. In 2005, she went on a Delegation on Medicine to South Africa. Then, in 2006, Leslie co-founded Georgetown's MESAHI Project, a healthcare initiative for the Tuikut village in Kenya, which runs a mobile clinic with Georgetown undergrads, medical students, and Kenyan doctors. In 2007, she received a Dartmouth International Health Group (DIHG) fellowship to teach dengue fever prevention in the Philippines, where she also participated in a nutrition month campaign. Leslie also did work in Manchester, NH, as a DMS Urban Health Scholar, where she did a lead screening project with the health department. At Dartmouth, she am also a CPR Instructor for DMS Heart, volunteer and website designer for the school's free student-run Mascoma Clinic, and a Patient Partner for an elderly woman with renal disease. Leslie became involved in Urban Health Scholars because she envisions herself working in underserved urban communities and doing international volunteer work. Through the UHS program, she hopes to be exposed to the health issues in underserved urban populations, and to bring awareness of these issues back to the DMS community.
Nick Ellis
Nick's interest in Urban Health started with his work internationally when he discovered an interest in health disparities and issues around access to care. Nick's main focus in college was on Latin America and in medical school he has continued that interest in Latin America which has also grown into access to care for Latino populations in this country.
Omri Ayalon
Omri's upbringing allowed him to be exposed to a wide array of people and experiences, including the rich Southwestern culture of southern Arizona, a slice of small-town-USA in upstate New York, as well as some time over seas in an urban setting in Rishon-Le-Zion, Israel. During his time at Brandeis University as an ecology major and anthropology minor, he became interested in the interactions people have with each other as well as with their environment. This joint interest in the biological and sociological sciences led him to pursue medicine as a career at DMS. In the medical school setting, UHS has provided Omri with an opportunity to continue his interests and apply them unique ventures in learning about urban medicine. He is looking forward to one such UHS-inspired experience which he is about to undertake in Israel and will be presenting upon his return. While on a clinical rotation there, Omri hopes to learn about Israeli urban medicine, its attributes and drawbacks, as well as highlight the state of Palestinian health within the country.
Katie Ratzan
Katie is a fourth year medical student on the 5-year DMS plan (along with 40% of her original class). She grew up in West Hartford, CT, attended college at Georgetown University and a post-baccalaureate program at UConn. Before medical school, she worked in Chelsea & Revere, Massachusetts implementing a food insecurity screening and outreach support program for Masschusetts General Hospital. In addition, Katie volunteered in southwestern Uganda organizing a clean water project in several small villages. While at Dartmouth, Katie has worked extensively with Physicians for Human Rights both at the local and national levels. Her main interest in urban health centers around the glaring inequalities in healthcare of those living in urban settings. She is currently planning to pursue a medicine-pediatrics residency track and will be spending three months of her 4th year working at a pediatric clinic in Gabon. Her favorite activities are cooking, eating ice cream, watching Arrested Development and The Family Guy, and telling herself she'll exercise starting tomorrow.
Carolyn Presley
Carolyn Presley is a 4th year medical student at DMS. She graduated from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities with a B.S. in genetics and a minor in foreign studies. She first became interested in medicine while interning in an inner city clinic in Dakar, Senegal. Since starting medical school, through the Albert Schweiter fellowship, she has worked with underserved women in the Upper Valley recovering from homelessness and drug and alcohol addiction. She is interested in pursuing a career in internal medicine either in hematology oncology or infectious disease. Carolyn's career goals include changing national health policy to help americans afford basic healthcare. Carolyn also enjoys international health work and learning new languages. When she is not at the hospital she enjoys cooking, biking, hiking, and tennis.
Pablo Valdés
Pablo Valdés was born in Guatemala, but raised most of his life in Tegucigalpa, Honduras to his wonderful parents and two siblings. He did his undergraduate studies in Miami, Florida, where he graduated with his BS in Chemistry from The Florida International University. Pablo is currently a 3rd year MD/PhD student at Dartmouth Medical School and the Thayer School of Engineering, Dartmouth College. His engineering research involves developing neurosurgical image-guidance technologies. He wishes to pursue neurosurgery as a clinical career path, and as a practicing physician find a balance between his clinical and research passions. His interest in the Urban Scholars Program arises from his experience in working with underprivileged communities in large urban areas and his desire to continue such work in his life. Meanwhile, he is enjoying his training at Dartmouth, as he prepares to become an excellent physician-scientist, and, overall, just a good citizen of the world.