Laurine Tiema-Benson, MPH

A fourth-year medical student at Chicago Medical School at Rosalind Franklin University, Laurine Tiema-Benson has dedicated her life to serving underserved populations. She has an array of diverse medical and public health experiences that position her to be a well-rounded future physician. Laurine’s desire to enter the medical field began while she was in high school after witnessing her mother near death. However, it was during her undergraduate studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign that her desire was solidified as she helped low-income residents become more self-sufficient. Upon completing her degree, Laurine moved to Atlanta as an Americorps VISTA volunteer and later worked with an evaluation consultant firm to assess the knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors surrounding HIV/AIDS with residents of high-risk communities. While in graduate school at Emory University, Laurine served as the Director of Vision Screening for Unite for Sight and led eye glass drives for the underserved worldwide. Years later, Laurine held many leadership roles including co-instructing science courses to low-income, first generation high school students interested in medicine. For over three years, Laurine regularly accompanied her physician mentor on home visits to the bed-ridden, home bound, and people who had been recently released from prison. As a medical student, Laurine volunteers to deliver care to the disenfranchised via a mobile health vehicle and community health fairs. Additionally, for the last two years, she has been working on an United Health Foundation and National Medical Fellowships service-learning project to improve outreach and health service utilization in the local African American community.