Seychelle is from California. She earned a degree in Social Change through Art and then worked as an artist for an interior design company in Los Angeles, in social-media management for the San Francisco Chronicle, and in grants management for the International Rescue Committee in South Sudan.

“While working in South Sudan, I had an opportunity to join one of our field-based teams in a refugee camp on the border to Sudan. There I was able to visit clinics where doctors worked alongside midwives with very few resources, delivering hundreds of babies a month. Even with the supplies and staff afforded by generous donors, the conditions in the clinic were severely limited. It became clear what an incredible difference committed care providers could make in caring for women and babies. Upon returning to the United States, I volunteered at San Francisco General Hospital as a doula. My experiences on the labor and delivery floor of SFGH convinced me that my heart was in medicine.

“My favorite aspect of the program is the location. When school became overwhelming, nothing refocused me like a hike in the woods. I’m from northern California, so gorgeous trees and mountains have always been close by, but the cold weather was new. Our first snow day was thrilling. I loved watching snowflakes land on the frozen lake in front of our apartment.”