Suleiman Abiola

UConn School of Medicine, Class of 2021

I was born in Providence, Rhode Island and spent my childhood in Miami, Florida and Bridgeport, Connecticut. I attended Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and graduated May 2016 with a B.A. in Public Health Studies.

Prior to matriculating at UConn, I spent a year working as a medial scribe in the Norwalk Hospital Emergency Department. I first became interested in serving urban underserved populations in high school when I participated in service learning trip to Chiquila, Mexico, Port-au-Prince, Haiti and Andhra Pradesh, India. Each of these trips had a profound impact on me, and drove me to seek out community-based work in urban environments as an undergrad. During my first two years, I interned with a team of dietitians, for whom I conducted interviews with low-income patients affected by HIV/AIDS and cancer assessing their nutritional status. The following two years, I worked as a community organizer, where I built partnerships with local non-profits and partnered with block leaders to bolster community’s involvement in local projects.

The deeply rewarding work I completed in Baltimore intensified my commitment to and revealed the wealth of opportunities in underserved urban neighborhoods. The Urban Service Track represents an exciting means to integrate my life-long passion for service with my future career as a physician. I will strive to be a clinician with deep ties to his community, who will advocate for growth and development in underserved communities. The UST will help me develop the programming, networking, and organizing skills I need to do this.