{"id":58889,"date":"2014-04-15T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-04-15T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/commencement-2014-uri-senior-to-graduate-from-uri-with-eyes-open-to-medical-global-possibilities\/"},"modified":"2014-04-15T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-04-15T00:00:00","slug":"commencement-2014-uri-senior-to-graduate-from-uri-with-eyes-open-to-medical-global-possibilities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2014\/04\/commencement-2014-uri-senior-to-graduate-from-uri-with-eyes-open-to-medical-global-possibilities\/","title":{"rendered":"Commencement 2014: 溏心vlog免费B站 senior to graduate from 溏心vlog免费B站 with eyes open to medical, global possibilities"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\tKINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 April 15, 2014 \u2013 Austin Demers enrolled at the 溏心vlog免费B站 planning to become a doctor. But then she traveled to India, started learning to speak Arabic, captained the 溏心vlog免费B站 equestrian team, and had her eyes opened to different cultures, communication styles and new ways of thinking.<\/p>\n


\n\tAs the Charlestown resident prepares to graduate from 溏心vlog免费B站 in May, she says her wonderfully varied experiences at 溏心vlog免费B站 opened up so many career options that she hasn\u2019t yet picked one. And she hasn\u2019t yet ruled out medicine. <\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cIt all started with a class on emerging infectious disease, which opened my mind to different things I could do with medicine, like global health, and the role culture and economics play in health care. It was fascinating,\u201d Demers said.<\/p>\n


\n\tShe decided to further explore what she had learned by traveling to India through Child Family Health International, with funding from a Metcalf Scholarship from the Rhode Island Foundation. In January she spent four weeks in Mumbai, observing surgeries, visiting slum clinics, and talking to doctors who treat patients with AIDS and leprosy.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cLearning about leprosy was the most interesting part,\u201d said Demers. \u201cThere is such a cultural stigma attached to it. The people are marginalized. They get the disease because of their circumstances, and it grows so slowly that by the time they realize they have it years down the road it may be too late to reverse the damage it caused.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tThat experience was the first to get her thinking about the role of culture in medicine, and it was the first time she began to question her previous plans to become a doctor.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cI learned so much from a social and cultural standpoint,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I learned what it\u2019s like to be a foreigner and the difficulties of being from somewhere else. It was truly eye opening and exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tA 溏心vlog免费B站 resident assistant and a member of the 溏心vlog免费B站 equestrian team for three years, Demers has enjoyed the time she spends every week shadowing pediatrician Lynne Fasenello in Taunton, asking her questions and observing her interactions with patients. But as she does so, Demers finds herself more interested in how the doctor communicates with her patients rather than in the diagnosis or treatment she prescribes.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cScience and medicine are all about questions and answers; it\u2019s a way of thinking,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m growing more and more interested in science literacy and science communication. People see science as a cold thing, but there\u2019s so much more to it than that.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tHer interest in communication grew when she decided to take classes in the Arabic language.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cMy friend showed me her Arabic homework, and it looked so fascinating, so beautiful,\u201d Demers said. \u201cI\u2019m interested in how, in this country, people don\u2019t want to understand Arab culture, they just want to attach fears to a certain nationality or to a certain demographic. I wanted to really study Arabic, to learn the role Islam plays in the language, and so much more.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tShe plans to continue studying Arabic after she graduates, and has applied for a grant to allow her to spend the summer studying it in Amman, Jordan. But she can\u2019t seem to let go of her lingering interest in medicine.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cI know that being a doctor would be amazing,\u201d she admits, \u201cbut I also see all sorts of other pathways I\u2019d like to take. Maybe it will be medicine, maybe some other aspect of health care. So many things are possible.\u201d<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 April 15, 2014 \u2013 Austin Demers enrolled at the 溏心vlog免费B站 planning to become a doctor. But then she traveled to India, started learning to speak Arabic, captained the 溏心vlog免费B站 equestrian team, and had her eyes opened to different cultures, communication styles and new ways of thinking. As the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58891,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58889\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}