Jahnea Williams

UConn School of Medicine, Class of 2021

I was born and raised in Waterbury, Connecticut. I received a B.S. in Biological Sciences with a minor in Psychology from the Honors Program at the University of Connecticut.

As an undergraduate, I volunteered with the Holy Family Home and Shelter, a women and children’s shelter in Willimantic, Connecticut, where I ran an after-school program for the children in the shelter and helped the women complete job applications and find housing. I also participated in a service trip to Nicaragua, where I learned how the absence of accessible healthcare can lead to the general deterioration of entire communities. Starting in 2016, I worked as a registrar for the Emergency Department at St. Mary’s Hospital in Waterbury, where I learned more about the complex issues affecting urban populations and the difficulties faced by their healthcare providers.

I want to participate in the Urban Service Track so that I may be better prepared to treat patients from a wide variety of backgrounds. Patients from underserved populations face a particular set of complications in accessing healthcare; to overcome these, physicians must be able to leverage an understanding of such individuals’ backgrounds to prescribe effective healthcare regimens. I believe that the UST will grant me a more in-depth understanding of the challenges faced by urban medically-underserved communities. Additionally, the UST’s emphasis on interprofessional education will provide me with the skills I will need as a physician to work with my peers in order to provide the best possible health outcomes for each patient.