Brianna Rader

Hi! My name is Brianna Rader. I grew up in Knoxville, TN, where I also accepted the Haslam Scholarship and enrolled at The University of Tennessee. I’m majoring in College Scholars, an honors interdisciplinary program where a student can design her own major and curriculum. Mine is medical humanities. I’m pre-med, but I believe there is more to being a physician than just the knowledge of the natural sciences. I take all of the traditional pre-med curriculum but also philosophy, film studies, and history. One day this will help me communicate and connect with my patients more thoroughly because a sick patient is more than a Petri dish with a disease; she is a human being. I plan to spend fall of my junior year in Pune, India, where I will study public health, along with other courses like cinema and social justice. This will also prepare me to be a better physician because I’ll have first-hand knowledge of how public health issues affect a nation. Near the end of the program, I’ll have the opportunity to create a short documentary about a public health issue I would like to research. It’s crucial to my College Scholars Program and myself as a future physician to learn how to adapt to a different culture and learn public health in a country that actually has public health issues; I’m thankful FEA is making this experience possible for me.