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May 2, 2018

Georgetown University’s Mini Medical School Program

By Sanjay Iyer (MSFS'19)

Georgetown University’s Mini Medical School Program is a community-centric lecture series that strives to create avenues of communication between the medical professionals of the Georgetown University Medical Center with the wider Georgetown and Washington, D.C., community. The biannual eight-week program features a series of two-hour lectures on different areas of medicine and health given by Georgetown University faculty leaders in their respective fields. Both informative and engaging, the lectures facilitate open dialogue with participants, fueling subsequent discussions across local middle schools, high schools, and professional organizations.

The program caters to individuals of all ages, from aspiring medical school attendees to career professionals and retirees interested in learning more about medical best practices, evolving science, and general health. Many participants have completed the Mini Medical School and returned for new lectures, special faculty presentations, or simply the community atmosphere that permeates the program. This semester, the topics covered a wide array of subject areas, including traumatic brain injuries, alternative medicine, and plastic surgery, among other disciplines. A personal highlight was a lecture on podiatric medicine and surgery, wherein the lecturer wore a GoPro camera into the operating room. This visceral journey through the emergency surgery was riveting, and was followed by a discussion on the complexity and nuances of the profession.

As a graduate student and Global Health Initiative (GHI) student fellow, I am grateful for the opportunity to connect across the various arms of the Georgetown academic community. The expansive network of Georgetown, the variety of events coordinated by the GHI, and the ability to fuse my academic curriculum in the Walsh School of Foreign Service (SFS) with global health policy and current medical practices have been transformational in clarifying my professional focus moving forward. As an SFS student, the GHI has enabled me to explore the nexus of health policy and development through guided research under the mentorship of faculty, and the Mini Medical School Program has provided for deeper insight into the physical practice of medicine.

The final lecture of the Mini Medical School is scheduled for May 8, 2018, and participants will receive a certificate of completion of the program. More importantly, the knowledge gained and the community that has been cultivated over the past eight weeks will last throughout my experience at Georgetown.

Sanjay Iyer (MSFS'19) is a graduate student in the Masters of Science in Foreign Service program and a student fellow with the Global Health Initiative.