Area of interest: MD/PhD student interested in infectious diseases Originally from: Rural China, Guang Dong Province Before UCSF: Volunteered in the Dominican Republic with Medical Ministry International

Feng-Yen Li

Feng-Yen was born in rural China, in the province of Guang Dong. Her extended family were all farmers, and her childhood was spent in a village where cooking was fueled by wood, there were no refrigerators and no running water, and electricity ran only sporadically.

When she was nine, she moved with her family to Philadelphia -- a culture shock for everyone. For Feng-Yen, the greatest difficulty was the language barrier. "I would sit in school with no idea what anyone was talking about." She didn't even know her ABCs, and her parents with only sixth-grade educations from China, were not able to help her. Even attending ESL classes didn't help at first, as her teacher's native language was Spanish.

Fortunately, another teacher, who spoke a little Cantonese, finally came to her rescue by offering additional tutoring in small groups, which made all the difference for her. The other great leap was her discovery of free public libraries. Feng-Yen started devouring the books "shelf by shelf" in one summer, and things started to fall into place.

Her shyness, which had been rooted in her communication difficulties, disappeared, and she started making friends – though some aspects of the American culture still eluded her. "The first time I ate cheese, I got nausea. Even today, I am still not really used to it. I can eat pizza, but only if the cheese is covered up by a lot of tomato sauce."

Having grown up in a rural village and from an underprivileged background in the US, Feng-Yen felt very motivated to help the underserved. In her junior year at Princeton, she raised funds to volunteer on a trip to provide medical care to people in third world countries. With a team of health professionals and other volunteers, she traveled to the Dominican Republic and went from village to village to set up one-day clinics, where people would gather, after local churches had spread the word.

Her upbringing made it easier for her to adapt to the conditions in rural Central America, which were shocking to volunteers from more privileged backgrounds who had never experienced real poverty. But even in her village in China, the situation had never been as dire as in some of the areas she visited. She saw "a mother crying because she was not able to feed their babies, and a deaf old lady screaming to express her pain."

Feng-Yen hopes to enter the field of infectious diseases, "something that affects huge populations at once." At UCSF, she is part of the MD/PhD Program. Her goal is to apply her scientific inquiry skills to investigate the underlying causes of disease, while using her clinical skills to care for the poor at home and abroad.

"I chose UCSF because there are great scientists, clinicians, and resources here for working on infectious disease and the underserved. Also, everyone here is really friendly and willing to help!"