Five Meharry Medical College Students Spend Summer at Stanford

In May, five students from Meharry Medical College traveled over 2,000 miles from Nashville to Palo Alto to spend two months living, training, and contributing to the Stanford community, as part of the newly created Stanford Department of Medicine-Meharry Initiative.

Started in 2017, the program was initiated after Abraham Verghese, MD, the Linda Meier and Joan F. Lane Provostial Professor of medicine, visited Meharry Medical College last spring.

“I have personal experience on how Stanford can transform lives—it did mine,” Verghese explains. “My hope was that by bringing students who are unlikely to visit and experience otherwise, we can transform their lives whether or not they ever subsequently train at Stanford.”

With the support and sponsorship of Department Chair Robert Harrington, MD, and Vice Chair of Finance and Administration Cathy Garzio, Verghese designed a program to expose Meharry students to current research at Stanford, and to encourage connection between the two institutions.

Participants were busy on campus – researching, shadowing faculty, and attending on-campus lectures. They also enjoyed life in California beyond the laboratory – exploring their home base of Palo Alto and taking trips to places like Lake Tahoe and Los Angeles.

Learn how two Meharry students, Sara Tefastion and Terrance Embry, spent their time at Stanford—click here to read more.