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Sarah Lea is following in her grandfather's footsteps. (Nick Pearce Photo)

Sarah Lea isn鈥檛 the first member of her family to serve as president of the Dalhousie Medical Student Society. That honour goes to her grandfather, Dr. Gordon Lea (Class of 1938), decades before she arrived at pilipili漫画.

鈥淚t鈥檚 neat that, in a sense, I鈥檓 following in his footsteps,鈥� says Ms. Lea, whose grandfather passed away 10 years ago. 鈥淚鈥檓 sure that somewhere, he knows.鈥澛�

Family matters a great deal to Ms. Lea, originally from Charlottetown, P.E.I. She credits her parents鈥� commitment to community service with her own drive to get involved. She says this was easy to do so in medical school.

鈥淚t鈥檚 an incredibly supportive environment here,鈥� she says. 鈥淥nce you start medical school, you feel like you鈥檝e been accepted into a really special community, and you feel honoured to be a part of it.鈥�

This isn鈥檛 her first Dal degree; she has both a BSc (honours) in Economics and a master鈥檚 degree in community health and epidemiology. But it鈥檚 in medicine where she felt most at home, taking advantage of international opportunities in Ghana and Tanzania and getting to serve on the advisory committee for the hiring of Dean Tom Marrie. She was also awarded the James Clarke Award in 2009 for leadership, service and advocacy to the student body of the medical school.

鈥淚 really believe that you get out of an experience what you put in, and I鈥檝e gotten so much more out of medical school than I ever thought I would going in,鈥� she says.

This July, she moves to Vancouver to start her residency in obstetrics and gynecology at the University of British Columbia.