2008 Woodie Awards
Watson Fellowship Awarded to Senior
Brad Howard
Issue date: 4/14/06 Section: News
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Since 1985, this honor has only been awarded to 23 other Hendrix seniors, which is the only institution in Arkansas eligible to nominate students.
After submitting a proposal early last November, senior interdisciplinary international medicine major Tori Sutherland was granted $25,000 to travel to El Salvador, India, Botswana, and Senegal. Sutherland, through a year of individual exploration, will examine the division in health care between the developed and developing worlds.
Sutherland believes this division is a huge hurdle in the campaign to provide a standard quality of life to the world's citizens.
"I am particularly interested in women's healthcare services," Sutherland said in her proposal. "Through clinical observation in a wide range of medical facilities, I hope to gain a better understanding of topics that directly affect women, including cultural influences on healthcare, overpopulation, and the HIV epidemic."
In El Salvador and India, Sutherland hopes to gain an understanding of the different social and religious principles that determine the availability of family planning services. In the African nations of Botswana and Senegal, she plans to collaborate with other projects to address the huge problem of fistula and investigate the impact of the HIV crisis on women.
"I am extremely excited for the opportunities that I know the next year will bring, and I can't wait to discover new parts of the world," she said. "I will be able to explore women's health issues, such as HIV and fistula, which I believe will play a large part in the direction of my career."
Sutherland has a long resume in global studies. She can speak French and Spanish and is learning Arabic and Hindi, and she spent her senior year of high school studying in France. Her host parents were heavily involved in research and humanitarian organizations such as Doctors Without Borders.