Pre-Health programming at Sewanee is dedicated to the education of each student in their unique path toward understanding the human condition. Learning through experiences in clinics, communities, and classrooms our students are ready to be leaders in healthcare.
The Office of Medical and Health Programs provides an environment that promotes student success both personally and professionally. Sewanee pre-health students are supported through a strong individualized advising experience that focuses on their path in medicine. Our students enjoy a supportive atmosphere with professional learning opportunities and unique leadership development programming. Sewanee pre-health students utilize these amazing resources to gain the skills to be leaders in medicine capable of handling the complex health care system with confidence and compassion.
The Office of Medical and Health Programs at Sewanee offers the tools you need to build on a superior liberal arts education while preparing you for a successful career in health care. We successfully support students' interest in the full range of pre-health paths. Check out the programs we offer!
The Hippocrates Fellows program is for incoming first-year pre-medical students who are 100% committed to the path of medicine and want to be challenged with a rigorous curriculum, while also engaging in opportunities to hone their leadership skills.
We help create the health care professionals you want to see. Our program offers a first-year orientation that introduces students to advisors. Students have access to free tutoring, course planning, and shadowing opportunities— all with the help of the pre-health advising office.
To provide students with the skills and knowledge necessary to succeed in health care fields, pre-health courses are often extremely rigorous. The Office of Medical and Health Programs provides both leadership development opportunities for students interested in tutoring and one-on-one peer tutoring for students seeking tutoring. All peer tutors have not only succeeded in the courses in which they tutor, but they have also been shown to be good teachers and mentors.
Whether your interest lies in research, clinical experience, or outreach, we have an internship for you. These clinical internships are a great way to explore a career as a medical doctor, physician assistant, or nurse. There are also many opportunities for students to shadow local pharmacists, dentists, physical therapists, and veterinarians.
Sewanee has a unique, supportive pre-health culture with student societies at the core. The Sewanee Health Professions Society provides a support system while the Sewanee Multicultural Health Society focuses on reducing health disparities in our surrounding communities.
Not only are Sewanee alumni succeeding as medical professionals, they're coming back to interact with us, to be a resource, and to tell us about their journey. Don't take our word for it—meet some graduates who were part of our pre-health program. See what they have to say!
This course examines disease and healing through readings and discussion concerning the pragmatic and moral challenges faced by individuals and societies. Material is drawn from the Journal of Medical Humanities and books authored by those in the medical and public-health fields. Focus extends to how we think about suffering, chronic disease, mental illness, and their impact on medical practice and policy.
This course analyzes the global AIDS pandemic, questioning how power inequalities, resource allocations, and representation affect vulnerability to HIV infection and responses to the disease. The course explores how AIDS shapes local governance structures, political development, global norms, and global institutions. It questions how global institutions and national governance use human rights norms, economic calculations, and security interests to frame and develop HIV/AIDS policies. Particular attention is paid to the intersection of disease and political marginalization.
This course focuses on basic anatomical structures of the human body and how distinct organ systems are organized at the tissue and cellular levels. Emphasis is placed on understanding structure-function relationships in the human body, how they interact in a network, and how those relationships are perturbed in the development of human disease. The laboratory component addresses practical considerations relating to anatomy and includes medical imaging technology emphasizing three-dimensional relationships
A survey of major molecular mechanisms of human disease, including approaches to diagnosing, preventing, treating, and curing disease conditions. This course features an overview of basic human genetics, an introduction to pharmacological methodologies in drug design, and the FDA approval process and a survey of current technologies associated with gene therapy and stem cell treatments.
An examination of the fundamental chemical aspects associated with the process of discovering new drugs. Both combinatorial and rational drug design methodologies are addressed. Emphasis is on the application of various structure-based and mechanism-based strategies for drug optimization. Additional topics include pharmacokinetics (how drugs move within the body), metabolism of drugs, and pharmacodynamics (effect of drugs and their molecular mechanism of action).
An introduction to the history of medicine by examining the way diseases have been documented and discussed by patients, family members, and medical professionals in the past. Students read medical narratives produced during and about various periods in U.S. history. They study how such narratives have changed the way historians think about the history of medicine and, in some cases, how Americans think of themselves and their relationship to illness, the health care profession, and medical research.
Alyssa Summers enjoys teaching topics that explore the complexity of DNA and the implications of genetic differences in cellular development and disease. In addition to the sciences, she is interested in how we perceive humanity, in particular how this realization may allow us to become better healers and practitioners of medical care. Summers is the director of the pre-health program—a pre-professional program that aims to help students achieve their goals in medicine and science.
Cynthia Gray returned to her alma mater to serve as assistant director of the Office of Medical and Health Programs. Her focus is on advising students interested in physician assistant programs, pharmacy, nursing, and physical therapy. Her research at Middle Tennessee State University focused on the lipid composition of marine dinoflagellates. Her teaching approach focuses on active learning, and she is constantly seeking out new ways to engage students.
Richard Summers has been teaching at Sewanee since 2001. He received a bachelor’s degree from Swarthmore College and a Ph.D. from Harvard University. He has taught courses in Mechanistic Biochemistry, Advanced Biochemistry, General Chemistry, and Organic Chemistry. He was appointed administrative chair of the Anthropology Department in 2008 and manages Sewanee's accreditation from SACS.
This fellowship may just be for you. This holistic, pre-medical leadership program focuses on preparing future medical professionals for an ever-changing health care arena. You'll even get a fully funded summer internship. Interested in a leadership role with our program?
The V-SURE program is designed for students who want to pursue a career in medicine and would like to get both research and clinical shadowing experiences during the summer. Students get in-depth research experiences that allows for a broader understanding between medicine and scientific advancements that relate to patient treatment and care. Once accepted, students have the opportunity, and are expected to commit, to intern for two consecutive summers.
Studying abroad can be incredibly rewarding. With a medical study-abroad experience, you can expand your cultural understanding while enhancing core competencies and, in many programs, gaining clinic or public health experience. From South Africa to Greece, Austria to Tanzania, your next adventure awaits!
