Ginsburg, Budnitz share
degrees but differ on approach
For most students, the intensive work required to earn back-to-back professional
degrees presents more than enough challenges. But two of this year's joint
degree recipients in medicine and public health have also sought out a variety
of extra-curricular educational adventures.
MD/MPH graduates Amy Ginsburg and Daniel Budnitz both were attracted
to Emory by its joint degree programs at the School of Medicine and the
Rollins School of Public Health and by the opportunities offered for learning
outside the classroom. Both hope to improve the health of individuals as
well as larger population groups. Beyond those similarities, however, they
have approached their educations in quite diverse ways.
Since graduating from Cornell University in 1993, Ginsburg, who is originally
from Syracuse, N.Y., has used her skills and interests to pursue world travel
as a public health student and facilitator. Between college and medical
school, she lived for a year in a repatriated community in the Ixcan jungle
of Guatemala, working with the Doctors of the World volunteer group and
assisting Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu with a conference on
indigenous peoples.
After her first year of medical school, Ginsburg worked with the Carter
Center's Global 2000 program in Nigeria on the guinea worm eradication project.
She spent another summer in Haiti with CDC researchers studying lymphatic
filariasis, the disease that causes elephantiasis.
At commencement Ginsburg received the prestigious Bolton Service Award
for her volunteer work outside of Emory. She begins an internship at the
University of Washington this summer and plans to become an infectious disease
specialist in public health.
After graduating from DeKalb County's Lakeside High School and majoring
in political science at Harvard, Daniel Budnitz decided to combine his medical
training with education in public health policy, both at Emory. After his
first year of medical school he joined the National Health Service Corps
for a summer internship on health promotion and disease prevention in a
Grady Health System satellite clinic and at an Atlanta Boys and Girls Club,
where he created a health promotion curriculum for young teenagers.
Along with fellow student Faye Mazo Evans, Budnitz founded the medical
school's highly successful student-run HOPE program (Health Outreach Program
at Emory) his second year, which involves more than 100 medical students
in volunteer outreach health promotion projects for underserved Atlanta
populations. Budnitz and Evans each received the Gaston Service Scholarship
during medical school for their volunteer work outside the university.
After a residency in internal medicine at the University of Pennsylvania,
Budnitz plans to combine clinical care with health care policy research.
-Holly Korschun
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