Global Health Symposium & Global Food Tasting

May 2, 2019

14th Annual Global Health Initiative Symposium

5:00 p.m.: Global Food Tasting, Student Presentations, Silent Auction
6:15 p.m.: Keynote Speaker Erica Seabold - "My Global Health Initiative Experience in the Republic of Congo"
Location: White Hall Atrium
Audience: The public
General Admission: $50
Students: $20
Click here to register

Erica Seabold, MS4, Class of 2019

Erica Seabold is a 4^th-year medical student at Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine. She will be completing a residency in Family Medicine with a focus in obstetrical care and is committed to working long term in a developing country. She has traveled to Africa 4 times for medical mission trips. Three of these trips have been to Pioneer Christian Hospital in The Republic of Congo, most recently in January and February of 2019 where she delivered twins. “I have felt a calling on my life to work as a medical missionary in a developing country since I was a senior in high school. When I was applying to medical schools, Wright State was one of the only schools with an international health track that could help me not only travel overseas but also learn more about good global health practices. Naturally, I jumped right into the Global Health Initiative.”

Her first trip was to Liberia in 2012, when she was a student at Cedarville University. She had just finished her first year of nursing school and was traveling with African Bible Colleges to work out of a mobile clinic. The lack of health care surprised her. She saw that people didn’t know what vaccines were, or readily believed the claims of shamans. Seabold watched as the doctors worked with meager resources to set bones, aspirate knee effusions, help burn patients, and treat children with epilepsy. The experience helped her to realize that she wanted to become a physician, and inspired her to take more foreign service trips and change her undergraduate major to biology. Since then, Seabold's trips to the Congo have reinforced that working in developing countries is the calling for her medical career. Her efforts to set up an emergency ambulance service in the Congo resulted in her receiving the Outstanding Third-Year Student award from the Wright State University Academy of Medicine.

Erica and her husband, Paul, live in Dayton. He works as a pastor. In her free time, Erica enjoys running, baking, and volunteering in her church nursery and at The Living Well Clinic.

For more information, contact Delores James, delores.james@wright.edu.