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June 17, 2005

First Somali Med school grad from U of M

Unfortunately the article I chose isn’t about a controversial issue, but rather a human interest story, so it doesn’t invite a lot of discussion. However, there are some important points to be made about the University’s first Somali medical school graduate, not the least of which is to commend his tenacity.

Mohamed Ibrahim worked full time as an RN to support his wife and kids while he went to medical school. That sounds pretty tiring to me, but I speculate that to Ibrahim it was a piece of cake after surviving the violence in his homeland and the arduous journey to America.

I imagine another Somalian will soon graduate from the University’s medical school, after having endured an equally treacherous beginning. I was surprised to read that Ibrahim is the first Somali graduate from the U’s medical school. As stated in the article, “He was also attracted to the Twin Cities because of the large Somali population…” (MN Daily, June 8 2005). The Twin Cities does have one of the largest Somali populations in the country, which makes one wonder why only one Somalian has graduated from medical school here. Our group speculated that part of the reason could be because of the Somali culture itself. Somali women don’t traditionally earn college degrees, which excludes a large portion of the Twin Cities’ Somali population from attending college, let alone medical school.

There are, of course, other obstacles, but Mohamed Ibrahim seems to have found a way around them.