Local Medical Student Was Once Refugee
By: Sophie Nielsen-Kolding WMBD/WYZZ-TV
Updated: March 15, 2013
PEORIA - After four years of school, medical students wait for Match Day to find out where they'll complete their residencies, but one of those students is unlike her peers.
Ruta Tesfamicael just finished her fourth year at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria, but her journey started in a much different place.
"We came here as war refugees because our country was in a civil war against Ethiopia," she said.
At the age of six her family fled the Horn of Africa to live in California. Friday she's grabbed a white envelope along with her classmates of soon to be doctors.
Tesfamichael opened her letter and found out she got her number one choice: Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
"I'm from San Diego and I went to undergrad at UCLA so i'm really excited that I'm going back," she said.
Tesfamicael said she wants to practice internal medicine, a step that once would have been impossible.
"The opportunity that we have in the states is unlike any other in the world. You know I go back, I'm going to go back there in three days and I'm going to be visiting 95 percent of my family who can't even imagine this kind of of opportunity," she said.
Four of the UICOMP students will be doing their residencies in Peoria. More than 13,000 students across the country applied for the River City's 70 residency spots.
