More than 100 journeys on the path to becoming physicians or dentists began for members of the Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Dental Medicine Class of 2025 this month. The new students introduced themselves to classmates and donned their white coats for the first time. Members of the Class of 2024, well into their second year, will receive the welcome they missed last year due to the pandemic.

Seven Harvard Medical School students have received 2021 Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans. They are among 30 graduate students to receive the merit-based award for immigrants and children of immigrants and were selected for their potential to make significant contributions to the United States.

More than 160 graduating Harvard Medical School students will match to their residency programs this spring and move on to the next phase of their medical careers after graduation. Constance Wu, an MD student in the joint Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology program, is one of them. She found time in the midst of the past year and her demanding studies to, among other things, illustrate a children’s book on COVID-19 written by classmate Katherine Redfield. Wu talked with HM News about what the past year has been like and what she’s hoping for the future.

On March 19, after a challenging COVID-19 pandemic year, graduating Harvard Medical School students gathered online for the second year in a row to find out—and celebrate—where they will spend the next phase of their medical training.

Stories of people committed to public purpose and to making a positive difference in communities throughout the country.  Read the full story in the Harvard Gazette.  Read more about To Serve Better

Chase Marso remembers the moment he realized ...

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Graduating HMS students hold marriage ceremony in midst of COVID-19 pandemic.

It was an April wedding unlike anything they had ever imagined. 

Given the dangerous pandemic threatening the world right now, Parisa Fallah and Gavin Ovsak wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Brothers Hassaan Ebrahim, a student at Harvard Kennedy School, and Senan, a third-year Harvard Medical School student, founded Hikma Health, a nonprofit that builds software for organizations providing health care to refugee populations. ⠀
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“Our family is Syrian — our mother immigrated to the U.S. back in the ’70s to go to MIT. The Syrian refugee crisis was very personal for us,” says Hassaan.⠀
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Hikma Health’s new software allows patients to be screened for COVID-19 symptoms in refugee camps. Keeping in mind that health care workers using this solution would be in areas with low... Read more about Building Software to Screen for Covid-19 Symptoms in Refugee Camps

80th Soma Weiss Student Research Day held virtually.

The annual forum, sponsored by the HMS Scholars in Medicine Office, provides students with an opportunity to present their scholarly work and share their findings with faculty and fellow students through poster sessions. Posters and abstracts in the research categories of basic science, clinical/translational, global and community, and health and medicine in society were all made available online this year.

Five HMS students receive 2020 Soros Fellowships.

Shyam Kiran Akula was born in Arcadia, California, to Indian parents who immigrated to the U.S. from Kuwait when they were forced to leave due to the Gulf War. Akula majored in neurobiology at Washington University in St. Louis and worked in a pediatric neurology clinic at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, developing a passion for investigating rare diseases and caring for families afflicted with these conditions.

An MD/PhD candidate, Akula received the 2017-2019 Harvard Stem Cell Institute Medical Scientist Training...

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HMS MD students create online curriculum adopted globally.

“It’s spread beyond all our initial dreams and hopes, and it’s amazing to see the impact we’ve been able to make,” said HMS student Michael Kochis who, together with a group of about 25 to 30 fellow HMS students, set about creating a COVID-19 curriculum. It was initially conceived as a resource to be shared with fellow classmates or other local health care providers. 

Virtual Match Day captures joy, purpose for HMS 2020 graduates.

“This is not the Match Day that any of us expected — even a week ago,” said David Clossey to his Harvard Medical School (HMS) classmates who joined more than 300 faculty, staff, family and friends on a March 20 videoconference.