The Premedical Program
"Professor Verville helped me become the best possible applicant for veterinary school."
—Lauren Marini '02 (read Lauren's story)
Washington College's premedical program attracts top students who want to pursue the sciences within a liberal arts environment. Small classes, close relationships with professors, research and internship opportunities, and the option to explore interests beyond medicine appeal to many students who anticipate spending at least seven years after college singularly focused on the study of medicine.
"One of the nice things about doing premed at Washington College is that you can study other things, too," remarks Maria Jerardi '94, a former chemistry major who is practicing family medicine at a community health center in California's Central Valley. As an undergraduate, Maria played field hockey and coxed for the rowing team, participated in sorority activities and in student government, and lived in the International House. She spent a semester in Africa and, after graduation, won a Fulbright Scholarship to study the incidence of diarrheal diseases in rural towns. She was headquartered at the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research in Bangladesh.
Maria earned a master's degree in public health from Johns Hopkins University and a medical degree from Georgetown University School of Medicine, and then spent three years in a family medicine residency program in Merced, California, where the emphasis was on obstetrics, pediatrics and emergency medicine.
"I've encountered a lot of medical students who, in premed programs at larger schools, had taken only biology and chemistry classes," she says. "There's a real benefit to being well-rounded."