What were you doing in South Africa during junior year?
I took the public health program with the School of International Training in Durban. The first three months were all courses, and we learned about tuberculosis, malaria, HIV, sanitation and about public health programs in South Africa. During the final month we did independent projects. I chose to work in a rural hospital. I was stationed in the pediatric department, but I was pretty much like a lab tech or an emergency room tech. They literally let me do anything. I drew blood, started IVs and sutured.

Had you ever done that?
I’ve had basic EMT training, but in the U.S. we’re still not allowed to do all of that stuff. In South Africa, we would be trained for about a day on a specific task. Then we had to show the doctors that we could do it a couple times while they were there. Then they just let us go on our own. The whole reasoning was that they had staffing shortages. Anyone they thought capable could help.

Who were typical patients?
The emergency room cases were usually from car crashes, gunshots or stab wounds. The chronic patients were almost 95 percent HIV- or tuberculosis-positive. Some patients spoke broken English, but the majority spoke Zulu. I had to learn Zulu. Now I’ve pretty much forgotten it, but while I was there I could converse. The nurses there spoke both English and Zulu so they acted as translators.

Why did you choose that program?
Well, I am pre-med at Bates. I really like public health. I am a medical anthropology major, a self-designed interdisciplinary major. My whole year abroad was health-related — Denmark in the fall and South Africa in the winter to compare the two health-care systems. In Denmark, I didn’t see any HIV or tuberculosis, and that’s primarily what there is in South Africa. And Denmark was more hands-off. We took patient histories, listened to their hearts and took their blood pressure, but we didn’t do anything invasive like drawing blood, which we did in South Africa. You were recently accepted to the Medical College of Georgia.

What kind of work do you want to do?
I think surgery. The most fun I’ve ever had was working with surgeons. I’ve worked with the same surgeon back home [in Macon, Ga.] since I was a senior in high school. My dad is a doctor, and he’s probably been the biggest influence. I’ve just always liked medicine as a career.

Why did you decide to design your own major and do something different from the typical pre-med student?
I took Anthropology 101 as a first-year and loved it. My chemistry professor at the time encouraged me to combine anthropology and science into a major. I did some research and found medical anthropology is a major at other schools, so I looked at their course requirements. Then [lecturer of anthropology] Heather Lindkvist, who teaches the medical anthropology course at Bates, helped me put everything together.

The major is mostly anthropology, sociology and biology classes plus the pre-med requirements.

What kind of advice do you have for students traveling abroad?
Go out of your comfort zone. Going abroad for the year was the best thing I could have done.

In Denmark I had the typical study-abroad experience, where it was safe and you could do pretty much whatever you wanted. Then I went to South Africa where you couldn’t walk around at night. South Africa was probably more of a growing experience.