Alumni News & Notes

Hetana Patel'98 studied for her MD at St. George's University on the island of Grenada and in Newcastle, England.  She is currently employed at Arrowhead Regional Medical Center in Colton, CA, where she is a second-year resident.  She is completing her training in Family Medicine.Reflecting on her education at ACDS contributed to her life and career, she says:

"My experience at ACDS shaped my learning habits and discipline. The teachers at ACDS encouraged a learning environment that allowed us to explore and foster intellectual curiosity and inquisitive minds. All these characteristics are important while pursuing a career in medicine. Lastly, ACDS was fundamental in ensuring a school-life balance through sports and extracurricular activities. This is extremely important as often times it is easy to be consumes by the long work days and rigorous training. I am truly grateful to still be connected to the extended ACDS family and network.

Eric Sumner'04 earned an undergraduate degree in biology/pre-med from UCLA and attended medical school at Touro University. He completed his residency at Kaiser Oakland in internal medicine.  Eric was named the Internal Resident of the Year from his residency program. Eric and his wife, Sara, are in the first year of their three-year specialty fellowships.  Eric is in Critical Care Pulmonolgy at Kaiser Oakland, and Sara is in Pediatric Rheumatology at Stanford Lucille Packard Children's Hospital.

Katy Chiswell'09 is a registered nurse at the VA Hospital in Seattle on the Surgical Intensive Care Unit. She primarily works with cardiac patients who have just had open heart surgery. These patients come straight from the operating table and Katy and her peers take care of them until they are well enough to walk out of the ICU. Katy says that when she looks back on her time at Country School, one of her favorite projects was creating the edible cell in 6th grade science. This project sparked her interest in learning Biology. She feels that ACDS set her up so that by the time she was applying to college, she had no doubt in her mind that she wanted to be a nurse.

Shelby Schrager attended ACDS from 2001 to 2010.  She is a registered nurse in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Phoenix Children's Hospital. She cares for very sick babies and helps children with heart defects recover from surgery. Shelby says that she is thankful for her time at ACDS because it inspired her to serve others and instilled in her a strong sense of confidence and creativity. ACDS shaped her into who she is today and gave her the skills to work in today's ever-changing world of healthcare.

Natalie Drucker'12 studied kinesiology and health sciences at California Polytechnic State University where she worked on a mobile health unit for underserved women and infants without access to healthcare. Currently she works for Stanford Health Care as a Medical Assistant in internal medicine. She has recently been admitted into physician assistant (PA) school that guides PA's to work in primary care for underserved communities.

Sharing her thoughts on how her education and experiences at ACDS contributed to her life and career today, Natalie commented: "I believe that I learned how to be an empathetic person and listener due to the incredible faculty that fostered my passions and truly listened to my needs. The staff encouraged me to dream large and taught me how to care for others in the community. The nurturing environment and seeing the best in others became a model in my own life that taught me how treat the people that I help every day."