For a Global Generation, Public Health Is a Hot Field

The project was one of 16 international service trips open to William and Mary students. Others went to Belize, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic.

Last winter, Stephens, whose home is in Fairfax Station, struck out on her own. She found a community development organization in Gvozd, Croatia, and asked by e-mail whether it took interns. A woman in charge said she could come.

Stephens rented a room, cooked her own meals and got a Croatian tutor. She put together a hygiene course for young children and helped around the office. She spent Christmas and the winter term there and hopes to return.

"It was an amazing experience. The people were so welcoming," she said last summer while working in the District at the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation. But, she added, "It is important to make sure that the work you're doing is actually needed."

Stephens's parents are immigrants from South Africa, so she has a personal interest in that country. In the summer of 2007, she got a $3,000 grant to live in Johannesburg and research the relationship between public health and apartheid. On the side, she did her own epidemiological study.

She spent two days a week at an HIV clinic surveying patients about the use of traditional remedies. She asked how many had heard of, and were following, recommendations by the country's controversial health minister to take garlic and beet root. Her paper was published and won a college award.

Although her major is international relations, Stephens has also completed pre-med requirements and is applying to medical school. She realizes that public health may not have the cachet there that she and her friends see in it.

"Surgical procedures are perceived by our society as glamorous. Vaccination programs are not seen as glamorous," she said.

But that doesn't bother her a bit.