Rose Gabert

Growing up in a rural community three miles from a Native American reservation, I’ve always felt the importance of dialogue in the face of difference and the benefits gained by learning from people of diverse experiences. In college I studied medical anthropology and the problematic history of biomedicine in non-European countries. I became fascinated by the ways in which biomedicine continues to be rooted in the experiences of the elite and naïve to the realities of marginalized people. Since graduating I’ve spent a decade working with communities and local health professionals in many different countries on community health and research projects. I’ve found that Western biomedicine has a lot to share, especially since many of the breakthroughs achieved have come at the expense of populations that do not receive their benefits. But far more importantly, I’ve seen that there is so much Western biomedicine needs to learn from other cultures and conceptions of individual and community well-being. As I move into my medical career, I feel even more acutely the drive to learn from and serve people of different backgrounds and experience to enrich my own understanding of health and healing.

Project: "Acute retroviral syndrome in a cohort of Peruvian MSM with early HIV infection: syndrome characteristics and impact on clinical course"
6/18/2018 - 8/15/2018
Peru