A student’s years-long involvement with a local rural medical clinic fosters deep connections to people and place, and prepares her for a future career.
Emmie Chambers, C’18, was a Bonner Leader at Sewanee. The program embeds students in local internships, often to do “capacity building” work: helping organizations fulfill their missions in sustainable and context-wise ways.
Over her time interning at the Beersheba Springs Medical Clinic—a free clinic in a community several miles away—she did everything from patient intake to developing a patient assistance program to recruiting volunteers to renovate the building. Chambers was a prospective medical student, and the hands-on, multispecialty work at the clinic provided her the kind of deeply valuable preparation that medical schools are looking for.
