Tuzel is District Governor's Scholarship Winner

 

And The Winner Is. . . !  Sara Tuzel of Los Alamos, a first-year medical student at the University of New Mexico (UNM) in Albuquerque, was recently notified by Norm Liss, chairman of District Rotary Foundation Scholarship Planning Committee, that she has been selected to receive the District 5520 Governor’s Scholarship, a $10,000 award. This award, in its first year, is given to the student who best epitomizes the Rotary motto of Service Above Self through service and academic achievement.  The scholarship criteria required that the recipient must be a student enrolled in a college or university within District 5520 who is also pursuing a course of study in one of Rotary’s principle areas of focus:  peace and conflict resolution, child and maternal health, disease prevention, economic and community development, water and sanitation, and basic education and literacy. Tuzel’s focus falls within disease prevention and child and maternal health.

 

Tuzel, 23, who was chosen from a field of 18 other outstanding applicants, is committed to serving indigent populations.  Beginning in high school, Tuzel served as a medical translator for four summers at a Honduran orphanage and surgical clinic and has spent significant periods volunteering with two different mission hospitals in Cameroon.  In the first months of 2015, she managed a medical clinic in Haiti, treating lepers and disabled elders.

 

Tuzel has also given considerable volunteer service to a homeless facility in Albuquerque, as well as a center for sexually-abused children, and has worked long hours in emergency rooms in Los Alamos and Albuquerque. She also started a program with UNM classmates to teach children in Farmington about diabetes and healthy lifestyles.

 

As part of UNM’s BA/MD combined degree program, Tuzel graduated, magna cum laude, in 2015 with a BA in Health, Medicine and Human Values and began medical school at UNM in the fall.

 

In her application, Tuzel wrote, “With care and compassion, I want to show that each individual has intrinsic worth, that each is valued regardless of material wealth or social class.”  She continues that even beyond providing medical care, “It is even more important to me that people know that we share a common humanity and are equally worthy of dignity and respect.”

 

Tuzel is the daughter of Jolanta and Walter Tuzel of Los Alamos.

 

Rotary is a world-wide organization whose purpose is development of fellowship among business people and professionals in a community, the promotion of community betterment, high standards in business and professional practices, and the advancement of international understanding, cooperation, goodwill, and peace.

 

Submitted by Linda Hull, Rotary Club of Los Alamos

 

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