Our alumni
Alumni support
Alumni in medicine
Your future as a health professional will be enriched through participation in Teach For America. You can make a significant impact on students’ understanding of and interest in science and mathematics at a time when schools in low-income communities have a difficult time finding teachers with this content expertise. By teaching for two years and improving your students’ academic performance, you will expand and diversify the pipeline of future scientists, mathematicians, and doctors. Furthermore, our alumni say that their corps experience led to tremendous personal growth and gave them a more concrete, in-depth perspective on the medical needs of underserved populations. Our alumni also share that teaching for two years hones valuable interpersonal skills that increase their effectiveness in clinical settings and frames their medical careers in the context of service.
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Alumnus perspective | |
Alumni videos |
Alumni profile: Derek Kennedy
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Since high school, I’ve wanted to follow in my mother's footsteps
and pursue a career in medicine. But in college, I enjoyed participating in a mentoring program with my fraternity and started to consider teaching. When I told my pre-med advisor that I was considering Teach For America, she said that medical schools value the Teach For America experience because it demonstrates a commitment to serving others and the ability to work hard in a high-stakes situation.
My mom was the first person in her family to go to college, and she put me into private school. At the time, I was unaware of the differing level of resources between my school and the public school some of my friends attended. It was only later that I realized how fortunate I was.
Teaching is difficult, and I appreciated Teach For America's focus on providing resources and professional support. I looked to a Teach For America alumnus at my school as a model for connecting with students and getting them invested. I used my pre-med background to make science relatable, creating hands-on activities and tying topics to potential real-world careers.
My corps experience confirmed that a single teacher can have a significant impact. Most of my students greatly improved their standardized test scores in science. Overall, our school actually outperformed a school in Beverly Hills. I showed both sets of scores to my students, and the looks on their faces made it more than worth the long nights of preparing lesson plans. As challenging as teaching is, it’s also infinitely rewarding.
Seeing the obstacles my students faced in securing adequate health care motivated me to return to medicine. My medical school application essays and interviews stood out because I talked about Teach For America. Medicine is a field of service, and I had already experienced working tirelessly to make a difference in people’s lives, persisting through serious challenges without losing focus.
In working with students, parents, fellow teachers, and school administrators, I learned to relate to people at different stages of their lives and from various backgrounds. That's an important skill in encouraging patients to honestly discuss their medical history. Teaching also showed me how I learn most effectively, which has been critical in facing the immense workload of medical school.
After completing my medical training, I want to serve
under-resourced communities. I’ve been working at a free clinic during medical school. Down the road, I'd like to combine a free clinic with a practice that generates income, so that patients can be provided with more than minimal care. I improved educational outcomes for my students, and I want to continue that momentum by using my medical career to drive change.
Alumni profile: Prasanna Jagannathan
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I was inspired to be a physician from a young age, observing my uncle—a physician in southern India—take care of every patient who came through his clinic. For my uncle, health is a right that should be provided to all. During college, I spent a year in India and volunteered at one of Mother Teresa’s homes for the dying and destitute, becoming intimately aware of social inequity. I made many friends with similar interests, and one introduced me to Teach For America.
In college, I also tutored and served as a study group leader, and loved to teach. I saw Teach For America as an opportunity to teach while working to address inequalities in our society. Before entering the classroom, I didn’t understand the magnitude of the achievement gap. I assumed there was no way students could pass 8th grade without being able to read a complex sentence or do fractions, but there were individuals in my classes who had not mastered those skills. Experiencing that firsthand was very profound.
I had some concerns about being an effective teacher, but I learned how to create a positive environment in my classroom. I tried to make my classroom interactive and hands-on, and set up breakout sessions for students who were having difficulty. I worked with the other Teach For America teachers at my school and used this network as a source of support. We tried together to be positive agents of change at our school.
Very early in my Teach For America experience, I realized that poor health, nutrition, and a lack of access to adequate medical services negatively impacted my students’ ability to achieve in school. This reality played a large part in my decision to pursue medicine as another way to serve my students.
I’ve always been drawn to groups that align around a common purpose—people accomplish so much more when they work together with a shared vision. My Teach For America experience confirmed that. To this day, I have a sense of being part of a larger movement of incredible individuals. Of six residents in my primary care internal medicine residency at UCSF, which focuses on training physicians to care for the underserved, two of us were Teach For America alumni.
I don’t believe there’s a single “right” path to becoming a physician. The right path really is what is important to you, what makes you excited, and what inspires you to make a difference. At Harvard Medical School, I served on the admissions committee, and I saw how highly the members value the Teach For America experience. They recognize that corps members develop a strong sense of self and bring a unique perspective to the field. My corps experience sharpened my resolve to become a physician, so that when I got to medical school, I really knew why I was there.
Alumni profile: Susan Kim
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I honestly had no strong feelings about social justice or public service until I read Jane Addams’ Twenty Years at Hull House as a college freshman. Her accomplishments inspired me to consider what I could do to help others. My eyes were further opened by the Los Angeles riots, which made it clear that our country needed to change. I heard about Teach For America around the same time, and everything just clicked.
When I started teaching, I surveyed my students to find out what they liked and didn’t like about the class. They surprised me by writing that they preferred teachers who set boundaries and held high expectations, although they would never admit it in front of their peers. To achieve something, you have to know that you're capable, and that means your teacher must expect you to achieve.
Taking responsibility for the daily education of 120 kids really put into perspective the value of education, including my own. If I hadn’t joined the corps, medical school would have been an entirely different experience—I would have wondered if I was there for me, or because my parents had always expected me to follow in my father’s footsteps and become a doctor. My parents never pressured me about medical school, but after teaching, I knew medicine was my own decision.
Teach For America also gave me a breadth of life experience that I didn't get as a medical student and trainee. The potential in every single individual is tangible to me because I helped my students discover their abilities, and I saw the world open up to them. Understanding the power and potential in each of my patients and the fellows I train is essential to my work as a professor of medicine and as a physician.
Alumni profile: Bergen Nelson
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Although I completed pre-med requirements in college, I was equally interested in teaching. To help inform my decision about medical school, I applied for jobs at biotechnology companies and labs, but my heart wasn’t guided in that direction. I had also always felt a sense of personal responsibility to address injustice in our society, and that drew me to Teach For America.
Once I got into the classroom, the achievement gap became very personal. Teaching a bilingual class, I had students who couldn’t read and others who were quite literate in Spanish but needed to build their English skills. To be successful, I had to work with each student individually, and I learned that establishing that interpersonal connection was one of my strengths. I could see myself being an effective physician, working with patients one-on-one.
The corps experience also clarified my goals for a medical career focusing on public health. With this strong sense of purpose, I’ve been able to complete the pediatrics residency track at the University of California, San Francisco’s PLUS (Pediatric Leadership for the Underserved), an innovative training program to foster leadership skills and advocacy in pediatricians.
Today, I don’t view social injustice in statistical terms; instead, I see the faces of my students and my patients. In my fellowship at UCLA, I’m pursuing community-based research to develop programs that will impact children at all stages of their development, from building language skills in early childhood through promoting teen health and ensuring college preparedness. Ultimately, I’m seeking ways to connect the health care and public education systems to support children in underserved communities so they can reach their full potential.
Alumni profile: Jonathan Brenner
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I've wanted to be a physician since I was a teenager when I first volunteered for the Red Cross. As my college graduation approached, however, I wondered if I was bypassing a lot of other opportunities by going straight to medical school. How would I know if medicine was what I really wanted to do? I wanted to challenge myself and continue the community work I'd done, so I decided to join Teach For America.
I'm not exaggerating when I say that my two-year experience with Teach For America changed my life. As a teacher in an underserved school, I was continuously frustrated by the realization that I had many bright and eager students who were not realizing their full potential - both for want of adequate resources and because of the incredible challenges they faced outside of school. There were many opportunities, however, to make my students excited about science. For example, some fellow teachers and I started a science club that eventually collaborated with an environmental conservation organization on a study of the Hudson River.
The disparities I saw went beyond education to health care and nutrition. I had students with asthma who were absent due to inadequate medical treatment and others who missed school to accompany their parents on doctors appointments to function as interpreters. Once again, I was struck by the idea of all of this lost potential; I decided the best way I could work to restore it was in the medical realm.
I went on to earn an M.P.H., focusing on epidemiology and childhood immunizations. I am now in my last year of pediatric residency. I want to work towards ensuring that children and families from lower-income communities have the same level of access to decent health care as their peers in more affluent communities.
My teaching experience also helped me in medical school because it forced me to think very seriously about what I wanted to do with my life-because I loved teaching. So when I made the decision to go to medical school, I was even more committed. That made it easier for me to spend the endless hours that one must spend studying and reading in order to do well. I knew I had fully processed my decision, and I was committed to it.
Graduate school partnerships
A growing number of medical, dental, and public health schools partner with Teach For America to offer special benefits for corps members and alumni, including two-year deferrals, application fee waivers, and scholarships. These graduate schools seek out our alumni, recognizing that they have gone through a highly selective program and have engaged in a challenging professional experience. Click here to search our complete database.
The best physicians have mastered both the scientific and the humane sides of medicine. They are problem solvers who strive to communicate effectively and compassionately with their patients by understanding them as individuals and
as members of families and communities. Teach For America provides aspiring medical students a unique opportunity
to increase their understanding of diverse communities and enhance their ability
to work with people from all backgrounds.
- Richard A. Silverman
Director of Admissions
Yale University School of Medicine
Hear what some other medical schools think about the Teach For America experience
- Liliana Montano, Asst Dean of Admissions, Cornell University School of Medicine
Talks about the connections between teaching in low-income communities, and working in clinics later on as a physician. - Dr. Robert F. Ruiz, Director of Admissions, University of Michigan Medical School
Discusses why the University of Michigan has a partnership with Teach For America and values the Teach For America experience - Dr. Robert F. Ruiz, Director of Admissions, University of Michigan Medical School
Talks about the transferable skill sets that Teach For America corps members bring to medical school. - Koong-Nah Chung, Dean of Admissions, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis
Talks about how Teach For America prepares you to be a better doctor. - Koong-Nah Chung, Dean of Admissions, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis
Talks about how Teach For America prepares you to be more than just a physician, but also a leader in your community.
Alumni videos
Click here to hear from alumni in medicine about how Teach For America has impacted their decisions and perspectives.
