Since 1994, Wake Forest School of Medicine students have improved the quality of life of low-income North Carolinians, built bridges between the university and community sites, and developed into powerful role models for their peers through their work as North Carolina Albert Schweitzer Fellows.
Tracy Cassagnol, 2012-2013 Schweitzer Fellow, was awarded a Lambarene Fellowship to work in Schweitzer’s Hospital in Gabon. Read about the power of her experience.
What is the Albert Schweitzer Fellowship (ASF)?
The mission of ASF is to help end health disparities by developing “leaders in service.” ASF seeks to:
- Build future leaders in health fields who are skilled in and committed to working with underserved populations.
- Provide communities in North Carolina with needed health services through the volunteer assistance of graduate students in health-related professions that includes academic and local mentorship.
- Shift the culture of professional schools so they more effectively address needs of surrounding disadvantaged communities.
- Support Fellowship alumni who continue in lifelong community service and are influential role models for others.
Schweitzer Fellows are selected annually and are chosen on a competitive basis from graduate student applicants in a variety of health profession fields. They continue their conventional professional training while participating in the Schweitzer Fellows Program.
ASF is committed to providing experiential training that helps Fellows learn to develop effective ways to create, implement and evaluate community-based health interventions in under-resourced communities.
Schweitzer Fellows:
- Learn through creating, leading and evaluating a service project that strengthens their skills to work with and influence community members, organizations and professional schools to embrace a holistic approach to health.
- Develop skills to help them more fully meet clients’ needs.
- Are exposed to colleagues from many health-related disciplines and ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds, whose varying perspectives will help them understand the many causes of, and available solutions to, health issues.
- Offer new services, at little or no additional cost, to community-based organizations and expand the organizations’ number of volunteers and ways of utilizing them.
- Strengthen their connection among and between students from the other participating universities in North Carolina.
See the full list of Schweitzer Fellows.