The Fuld Leadership Program
Fuld Fellowships
Sarah John
Biographical Sketch
Reflections on the Fuld Fellowship
Biographical Sketch
Sarah John comes from a long line of people who have dedicated their lives to service. Her mother, whose parents and grandparents were Methodist missionaries, was born and raised in rural India and moved to the U.S. when she was eighteen. Similarly, her father’s parents served with Sudan Interior Missions for forty years, and he was born and raised in Nigeria and came to the U.S. at fifteen. Consequently, both Sarah’s parents, who chose teaching as their professions, instilled in her a strong ethic of social responsibility.
When Sarah was a student at Hollins University she studied abroad in India and saw first hand the county her family had lived and served in. Upon her return to the states, she felt impassioned and decided to volunteer teaching at the local jail. That experience taught her that she liked working with people in trouble and developing mentoring relationships with them. With those lessons, she graduated from college and took a job teaching at a high school for special needs students.
During her five years of teaching, Sarah became increasingly interested in women’s health. After attending a Doula training and childbirth classes, she decided that she wanted to use her newfound set of skills to serve uninsured women. She became involved with a local mentoring organization for teen mothers by providing free prenatal education and doula support for their girls. Shortly thereafter she sought other doulas that wanted to serve uninsured women. From there, she established her volunteer group, MotherLuck Doula Services. Since July of 2003, the group provided informational, emotional and physical support to over twenty uninsured women before, during and after delivery.
During the BSN program Sarah attended the spring break trip to Eleuthera, participated in the nursing student exchange to Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea, completed the first ever nursing externship at Ridgeview Institute (a local mental hospital), and taught a summer course entitled “East West Medicine” at a Johns Hopkins program for gifted high school students in Nanjing, China.
Sarah is enrolled in the Emergency Nurse Practitioner program. She chose this program partly because of its broad scope—it includes lifespan health care a t both the acute and primary levels—and partly because many of our nation’s undeserved seek their healthcare in the emergency department. Sarah hopes to provide holistic care to her patients in community and emergency settings.
Reflection on the Fellowship
Although I chose to become a Nurse Practitioner to provide care for the underserved, the Fuld Fellowship has endowed in me a deeper sense of responsibility. On a practical level, a free education means I can graduate without significant debt and have greater freedom to take a
job serving the poor, even if it means I will make a salary half of my private-practice colleagues. This is becoming increasingly important as we see fewer providers opt out of the lower paying specialties such as family practice, as well as the growing trend towards “boutique medicine.” On a philosophical level, I am the recipient of a great gift, which means, in turn, I must give greatly. To be a Fuld Fellow is a lifelong honor. That is, for the remainder of my professional life I may serve people who are poor by ensuring their right to health care. I plan to do this as an emergency provider as well in as primary care .
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