By Anna Miller and Jennifer Eder
Elizabeth Leonard was checking all the right boxes for a future in medical school.
She took all the appropriate pre-med classes and began to gain experience in the field as a surgical assistant.
But when she was working in Kenya as a medical volunteer, Ms. Leonard found herself more impassioned by the non-clinical aspects of her mission.
“I realized that there was so much more to health than medicine,” she says. “The problems people faced went far beyond their health issues, and I found that my skill set was best suited to help people with these deeper, social problems.”
Upon her return to the U.S., Ms. Leonard started exploring alternatives to medical school. After discovering GW’s School of Public Health and Health Services’ program in global health, Ms. Leonard knew she had met her match.
“I feel like I am getting two educations here – one at GW, and one in D.C.,” says the Colorado native. “It’s so exciting to be around people who want to talk about the same issues that I do. It is impossible not to feel informed and involved here – you just kind of absorb it.”
Before Ms. Leonard traveled to Nairobi, Kenya for six months, she didn’t even understand the term “public health.” But as she helped run feeding programs for orphans, create income generating activities for the poor and administer tuition assistance for high school students, Ms. Leonard quickly learned how vital social support is to a person’s overall health.
“The social aspect of health is just as important – sometimes even more important – than the clinical aspect. Without addressing these social issues, you can’t expect to make much progress on health problems,” says Ms. Leonard. “I realized in Kenya that there’s a lot of ways to help people, and maybe I should go in a different direction than medical school.”
Ms. Leonard, who majored in political science at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colo. and has always had a love for politics, chose GW in part because of its location in Washington.
“I thought that studying public health at GW would be separate from what’s happening in Congress, but I’ve realized that it’s not. My professors are always discussing what’s happening on the Hill and how it relates to public health,” says Ms. Leonard, who is concentrating her master’s in global health policy. “I’ve had really great opportunities in both public health and government policy.”
One of those opportunities has been interning in the government relations department of CARE, a humanitarian organization dedicated to fighting poverty and social injustice in developing countries through the empowerment of women. Specifically, Ms. Leonard is trying to educate members of Congress on maternal health and family planning.
“Maternal health is near and dear to my heart,” she says. “As a woman, I feel so lucky for the opportunities that I have and the challenges that I miss just because I was born in the United States. It’s just a very natural thing to fight for.”
In her role, Ms. Leonard, who will graduate in May, has organized and attended briefings on Capitol Hill, lobbied members of Congress and prepared for major conferences regarding maternal health.
“I came to Washington, D.C. for the purpose of getting more involved in the political process, and now I am actually doing it,” says Ms. Leonard, who hopes to work in international health advocacy. “I am honing my skills as a communicator and advocate, and understanding what it takes to get my message heard.”