David Van Leeuwen
Comparative History of Ideas with College Honors
Undergraduate
1999 Fellows
Travel Locations: Africa
Van Leeuwen began medical school in Holland straight out of high school; but after successfully completing his first year of study, chose to transfer to the University of Washington to complete an undergraduate education. “How, I reasoned, will a 24 year-old doctor who has studied nothing but the sciences since eighth grade be able to connect on a human level with his patients?” Van Leeuwen plans a Bonderman journey through the “AIDS-Belt” of Africa, around Lake Victoria. He wrote: “I want to be moved, to allow these people and this disease to come into my heart and change me in ways that could not happen here in the West. I want to have a deep-rooted sense of humanity, one that will be the driving force in my medical studies and future practice.”