Scholars in the Arts
Randy’s provocative works of metal, wood, and paint have earned considerable recognition.
Rusudan Kambarashvili
"On my short summer trips to Georgia, I had come to realize that...money and political connections penetrated the corruption-filled education and employment systems .. [But] in this country, I could reach my lifetime goal of becoming a physician and serving the poor and needy."
- Alumni of: 2005 Graduate Scholarship Program
- Resides: Lexington, KY
- Hometown: Telavi, Georgia
- Age: 30
- Community College: none
- Four-year College or University: Harding University Main Campus
- Graduate School: University of Kentucky
- Academic/Career Pursuits: Practicing medicine in Underserved and Poor Communities
- Other Interests: Church / Religious Organization, Foreign Languages / International Study, Nonprofits, Outdoor / Mountaineering / Camping, Public Services, Foreign Languages, Literature
Biography
Ten years ago, Rusudan Kambarashvili left the Republic of Georgia for the United States, beginning emergency treatment for leukemia at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, TN. The trip ended her father's two-year global search for a hospital that could pay for care of his daughter. Rusudan said that, after the untimely death of her mother, her father was unwilling "to lose another loved one to the mediocre medical care in Georgia." He stayed at her side for the crucial first six months, then returned to Georgia while she began 8th grade in Memphis, "a cancer patient with a noticeable foreign accent." She flourished both academically and socially. In high school, working with the foundation that had linked her with St. Jude, she helped raise more than $2,000 to bring in another young girl with cancer, this time from Kazakhstan.
Rusudan never doubted that she would become a doctor. Preparing for that career, she earned a 4.0 GPA at Harding University and worked summers as an orderly in a Memphis hospital and at a women's clinic in Telavi, in the Republic of Georgia. A university-sponsored humanitarian trip to Zambia in 2001 intensified her commitment to work with the poor, here and abroad. "I met American physicians who have committed several years or months at a time to serving the people of Zambia," she remembers. "I plan to follow in their footsteps."
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