Hi everyone! For those of you who I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting yet, I’m Mackenzie Stone.

I’m applying for the position of the Global Health First Year Representative for many different reasons, the first reason being that I have always had a passion for learning and understanding different cultures. I have always been drawn to the idea of living in other cultures to observe, understand and participate in differing societies.  By furthering my comprehension of the world in comparison to my own culture, introspectively I will learn more about myself, the people around me and I will be able to spread my acquired knowledge to others.

At this point of my life I have been very fortunate to travel and live in diverse places outside of my own community. While studying for my undergraduate degree In Biomedical Sciences and minoring in psychology, I lived in the United States which provided me with the opportunity to involve myself in several varying medical environments. This experience allowed me to compare and contrast the differing governing medical support systems provided by each country. I have travelled through parts of Europe and Asia and lived for a period of time in Australia and British Columbia. All of these experiences have given me an open perspective on accepting alternate attitudes, beliefs and methods while incorporating them with my fundamental knowledge on my own local community.

To me, global health is not only an area of study, research and practice but an interdisciplinary collaborative movement to synthesize population based preventative medicine and individual clinical care. Global health is analyzing health issues both locally and internationally to improve prevention, care and equity. By involving myself more readily in global health, I not only want to broaden my own knowledge on the subject, but I also want to provide information on this topic to my peers and the community. In the future, I hope that the knowledge I will gain from this position will help me make positive changes globally in preventative care, equitable healthcare and health improvement.