Love and Medicine: MUSC students bound by passion for global health

For MUSC medical students Sara Winn and Luke Dong, grocery shopping was not only therapeutic but the origin of their love. Between traveling the world for medical fieldwork and spending time studying in the library, all roads led back to H&L Asian Market, where these two students began making casual food runs as friends. “The first time I texted Luke and we really hung out on our own, I asked him if he wanted something from the grocery store,” said Sara. “He ended up joining me on our first trip to the store together.”

Sara is a fourth-year medical student who has established roots in the student community first serving as vice-president and subsequently, president of the College of Medicine Student Council. She also volunteered for MUSC Service Learners International’s (SLI), a student-run organization that promotes global health trips. Sara chaired the Curriculum and Public Health committees for SLI.

Sara was one of six people awarded a global health trainee travel grant from the MUSC Center for Global Health which enabled her to travel to Haiti this past summer for fieldwork. “The major barriers to doing global medical work are travel expenses and other related costs,” said Sara. “I’m hoping that the global health trainee grants encourage more students to pursue trips to work or do research abroad.” You can see more of Sara’s past global health and other adventures on her blog sites Cambodia Sara and Hangzhou Sara.

Luke, also a fourth-year medical student, founded SLI after recognizing a need for MUSC students’ exposure to global health experiences. It was through this effort that Sara and Luke spent most of their time together, hashing out plans to raise funds and coordinate logistics for their medical mission trips, most recently to Thomonde, Haiti this past July through a partnership with Project Medishare. “We chose Haiti as a common site because it is the country of greatest need in our hemisphere,” chimed Luke.

They have dedicated their extracurricular time at MUSC to global medical work by constructing a sustainable model to grow SLI. “Part of the idea is to empower students to put trips together and to understand the places they are going,” said Luke. “We’d like to make sure students are contributing to long-term improvement, rather than short-term personal gain.”

Sara and Luke have worked alongside each other for three years, toiling through medical courses and outlining intricate details of trips abroad for medical missions. They now have the task of planning what will be their most memorable trip: to the altar for their wedding in February. Shortly after, the two will then match for residency and graduate from MUSC in May. “It’s fun; we have so many symbolic turning points and the opportunity to share those experiences with each other,” said Sara.

The couple plans to pursue global health work in the future when the opportunity arises and after they’ve settled into their respective careers. Sara is pursuing an internal medicine and pediatrics residency while Luke plans on a residency in an anesthesia program, specifically critical care, with the hopes that through this specialty he will be able to continue working around the globe. “I think this will guide me as I go forward,” explained Luke. “I understand the need for more critical care physicians globally.”

Although Sara and Luke spend the lion’s share of their time moving their careers forward, family comes first—people, essentially, are their top priority. They understand the importance of interfamilial relationships at home and how it impacts medical care decisions. Through this, they’ve adopted the same philosophy for the patients they’ve treated here in the United States and abroad.

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