Samantha Fortier

In my undergraduate studies at Penn State University, I have focused my academic career on understanding how to provide preventive medical care to large populations. My academic pursuits have included participation in a research project on nutrition with Dr. Lori Francis at Penn State, global health fieldwork in Tanzania, Africa, and an internship with the Los Angeles County of Public Health Department. These experiences provided me with the required skill set to expand beyond tertiary care to work toward an understanding of how to prevent common health problems in large populations.
As a candidate pursuing Master of Public Health degree, I seek to expand my skills to acquire the numerous additional skills that my undergraduate training has shown are needed to reach my goals in the public health profession. By way of example only, these include learning how to identify the key components of epidemiology, draft health policies that work for the target population, produce programs for grant purposes, collect statistical data to analyze public health programs due to such programs’ limited funding, interpret and analyze data, and implement my work in the community.
I would particularly like to specialize in finding answers to questions that affect women’s health, and develop intervention projects that focus on minority women who need to improve nutrition to help eliminate diabetes-related health issues.
I believe that I will contribute to your graduate program by providing the type of leadership skills and ideas that I demonstrated during my undergraduate education where, among other things, I served as President of the Lambda Theta Alpha Latin Sorority, organized fundraisers for St. Jude’s Hospital and, as Program Assistant for Penn State’s Ritner Hall, and helped freshmen students find resources to assist them with their studies and cope with academic demands.
My passion and qualifications to work in the public health field are best demonstrated by three undergraduate experiences:
Penn State University internship with Dr. Lori Francis: in my internship with Dr. Francis’ “Healthy Bodies Project,” I worked with a team to discuss ideas on how to provide healthier nutritional choices to target populations to prevent or decrease various diseases. For two months during the summer of 2014, I worked on implementing Dr. Francis’ health prevention research at YMCA facilities to give families a better understanding of how to prepare nutritious foods. Our team introduced fruits and vegetables to the diet of low income families and taught the families how to prepare nutritious foods in their busy schedules.
I loved every minute of my work during that summer, especially the opportunity to participate in a cutting-edge project, discuss ideas with the families, and provide feedback to the academic faculty. Although I had volunteered throughout my high school and college years in the emergency rooms of Foothill Presbyterian and Mt. Nittany hospitals, my internship experience led me to realize that I wanted a career in preventive medicine rather than tertiary care.
Bio-behavioral and global health fieldwork in Tanzania, Africa: during my junior year, I was fortunate to be selected to participate in Penn State’s Global Health minor degree program and conduct global health fieldwork in Tanzania Africa for seven weeks from May 2015- July 2015. I pursued this fieldwork to continue to challenge myself to understand health care issues in our society and globally. I shadowed with amazing doctors and nurses who pushed me to question everything, and learned from this fieldwork how medical service providers need to work together on a global level on health care issues that affect large communities.
There were times when I felt that we were removing a shovel of dirt in order to make a difference, only to have many more piles of dirt fall on us the next day. I worked with burned patients and visited their social service agencies. I saw how medical services and organizations were limited in an underdeveloped country. I was heartbroken one day to see a doctor and his staff try to suction a patient without suction equipment; this was particularly sad because I knew that doctors and nurses in the United States have the equipment to suction out fluid from their patients.
Yet, the doctors and nurses did their best to show my group that we were there to provide the best possible medical care with limited resources, and to show me that each time I enter a community to provide assistance, I need to be aware of the community’s needs and its culture, and to make sure that I am providing the best possible care and not hurting anyone.
One of the most important lessons I learned in Africa involved seeing how we depend on food. For eight days, our team had limited access to water and food; I had to eat a village’s family pet to survive. The community helped us to learn what to do to survive. I realized at that moment that the first step in helping people is to understand how they live and how any particular preventive model could help their situation. Can they grow certain food? If so, what do they need to learn in order to cook that food? Does their culture support the preventive method?
I also saw the major role that nutrition plays in people’s growth and health. While a poor diet causes health deficiencies, better preventive models can eliminate malnutrition. (I learned that the introduction of peanut butter, for example, can eliminate bodily swelling.) My fieldwork in Africa brought reality to my academic learning, and taught me how critical the role of public health “ecosystems” is to everyone throughout the world.
Los Angeles Public Health Department internship: after my seven week trip to Africa, I returned home to California for a challenging opportunity offered to me by Ms. Ellen Eidem, Director of the Los Angeles Public Health Department. While Ms. Eidem normally does not accept undergraduate students to intern at this organization, she nevertheless hired me as an undergraduate intern.
During this challenging experience, I saw nurses and doctors in Los Angeles County with limited funding provide medical resources to women and children through community projects. I worked with Director Eidem’s team to create flyers on health care issues, attended meetings to provide input on how to reach a large community with medical services, and input data to identify and summarize problems affecting health care issues for women in the Los Angeles community.
As I conclude my undergraduate studies at Penn State University, I continue to attend seminars and participate in activities that meet my interest in preventive medicine outcomes and the effectiveness and quality of care. It is my passion to work in the public health field, and I have invested virtually my entire academic life in this pursuit.