Seomaritan Initiative is a non-profit organization founded by two medical student siblings, Sarah Seo, a second-year podiatric medical student, and David Seo, a first-year osteopathic medical student. The two siblings started this organization for the same reason they decided to enter medicine: to be Good Samaritans.
Sarah’s involvement with her community started when she was in middle school. Until then, her dream was to become a classical pianist. She visited nursing homes to provide music therapy. However, in the second semester of her senior year in high school, she had to find another dream to pursue when she could no longer play the piano competitively due to a wrist injury. Although a very devastating time for her, she reflected back to her experience at nursing homes and decided that if she can’t heal people through her music, she would like to make a direct impact on their lives.
Fast forward a couple of years, the long hours of sleepless nights completing a post-bac program, studying for the MCAT and scribing, she is now proud to call herself a medical student. Sarah wanted to do more with the opportunity she was given. That’s when she thought of the idea of Seomaritan Initiative. With the comprehensive education she receives at WesternU, along with her passion to make a difference once she is a practicing physician, she would like to utilize Seomaritan Initiative to go into the community and directly interact with individuals who do not have access to basic healthcare, with the hopes of improving their quality of life. Sarah states, “I believe that getting care and getting access to healthcare is a right, not a privilege. Our mission is to create a movement where we can inspire and mobilize members of our community to help achieve our collective mission of securing basic healthcare for every individual. It is our hope that the Seomaritan Initiative project will create a platform for healthcare advocates to collaborate and tackle the many challenges our healthcare system faces today.”
Just like the name of her non-profit organization, Sarah would like to take the initiative to make a big difference through small changes. Along with her personal goal, she would like to utilize Seomaritan Initiative to bring awareness of the importance of foot health. Sarah believes the foot is the most undervalued part of the human body. It is not only until an individual experiences any lower extremity injuries that puts them on bed rest that they appreciate the fact that our feet are what keep us alive. We all know that our heart plays an integral role in pumping blood throughout the body. However, she would also like to emphasize the importance of the role our feet play. She describes feet as our “second heart”. Our feet endure much weight and pressure every single day, and they play a crucial part in pumping venous blood back towards our heart. When people experience chest pain or abdominal pain, they are quick to visit their doctor but delay doing so for their foot health. Proper screening and maintenance of foot health can prevent many diseases and possible amputation.
Through Seomaritan Initiative, Sarah hopes to not only enrich the quality of lives in her community but also provide opportunities for future generations of doctors to go beyond the classroom and immerse themselves with real people and get inspired to tackle and address real challenges that our healthcare system faces today.
You can read more about the Seomaritan Initiative in WesternU News.