“I hope to be a comforting presence for patients during a very vulnerable point in their lives and use my lived experiences as a patient to improve patient wellbeing,” said Trey Saunders ’23. After visiting Hiram, Saunders fell in love with the Biomedical Humanities program and felt the College checked many of the boxes he was reviewing when finding the right school. “The Biomedical Humanities program gave me the opportunity to pursue my interests in medical ethics, health disparities, and the humanistic side of healthcare. This humanities background is so vital for students and will definitely shape me to be a compassionate and empathetic physician,” said Saunders.

Coming from Cincinnati Ohio and a high school of over 2,800 students, Saunders wanted a college where he could develop strong relationships with his peers and immerse himself in the campus community. He currently serves as the President of Medicus and Vice President of Corps for Rural & Urban Success in Health (CRUSH), is an Eclectic Scholar, a Garfield Center for Public Leadership Scholar, and is an AHEC scholar through the University of Akron Region Interprofessional Area Health Education Center. “Despite being a pre-medical student, I have been able to explore a variety of interests from being heavily involved in Student Senate, to being in a couple of short plays through our Theatre program,” said Saunders. “Hiram allows you to truly do everything which is one thing I really love about being a student here.”

After taking Feminist of Color: Perspectives on Disability, Illness, and Health, Saunders felt that the class truly had the greatest impact on him. As his first Biomedical Humanities course, the class critically examined issues of disability, illness, and health through Black, indigenous, and feminist-of-color perspectives. “These scholars are too often not credited enough for their work and this course aimed to center women of color and their experiences and perspectives to show how disability, illness, and health are inherently connected to race, gender, class, indignity, sexuality, age, and immigration status in the United States and globally,” said Saunders. “This class further reinforced for me the power of lived experiences and I was able to do my final conference paper on black maternal mortality, which is a huge problem in our nation’s healthcare system.” During his junior year, Saunders presented with a few classmates and his professor at the Society for Disability Studies Conference in partnership with The Ohio State University. His conference paper was titled Trapped: The Fallacy of Psychiatric “Care” in Juvenile Prisons and most of what he had learned in his Feminist of Color course, served as the framework for his presentation.

Saunders is looking forward to matriculating into medical school after graduation and is looking forward to entering the healthcare field and eventually teaching the next generation of healthcare professionals.