Alumni Update: Victoria Chi '17

My name is Victoria Chi, and I am a Dartmouth '17 with a double major in Government and Biology! After graduation, I spent a year working on public health initiatives in New York before starting medical school at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). I am now in my last year of medical school and am excited to be preparing for a residency in pediatrics! 

Pursuing a career in medicine may seem like an unconventional path for a Government major, but my studies with the incredible Dartmouth Government Department helped inspire and inform my commitment to not only caring for individual patients, but also creating structural and systemic change that can improve the health of populations. In medical school, I became a director of the UCSF Shelter Clinic, the free clinic that operates out of the largest homeless shelter in Northern California. Upon noting the high prevalence of mental health conditions among the population experiencing homelessness, I founded and directed a satellite Mental Health Clinic to care for the mental and behavioral health needs of my patients. I am also interested in working in global health to address the social determinants of health that have far-reaching effects on people's lives. I have spent time working in Kenya on a food security intervention among people living with HIV. Throughout these experiences, I carry with me the lessons I learned from my Government professors about policy, systems, and human rights, in hopes of becoming a physician who can make a difference for people and populations.