Meet Rahel Zewude (University of Toronto), our student of the month for March 2017!

Rahel’s commitment to mentorship and social justice is inspiring. As the co-president of the black medical students association, Rahel has been involved in the planning and creation of the black health speaker series, which gives students the opportunity to learn about the interaction between race and health. She promotes medicine as a career choice among underrepresented communities in Toronto and the GTA and she provides interested students with application advice and interview preparation.

Furthermore, she ran the Summer Application Support Initiative to provide interested pre-medical students from underrepresented communities or facing financial barriers with a medical student mentor who can guide them with putting together an application to medicine. She also ran the summer mentorship program, which gives high school students with Indigenous or African ancestry a chance to explore health sciences at the University of Toronto. The students continue to ask her for guidance and support as they look to pursuing higher education, which is a testament to the impact she had on them.

On top of all of this, she serves as the vice president of community affairs, which makes her the contact point for all community-oriented clubs at U of T medicine, and works on neurosurgery research projects.