Alumni Stories: William O. Brant '91

When I enrolled at Dartmouth, I was one of many people who thought of religion as just "something you do" rather than as a field of study. After my first course in comparative religion, I was pretty hooked and spent the rest of my Dartmouth career studying under Professors Fred Berthold and Hans Penner, including a great trip to Edinburgh. I went on to get my Masters in Comparative Religion at the University of Washington. I eventually went on to medical school and my current career as a professor of surgery and have come to the conclusion that, of any field I could have studied to prepare me for my job, religion was one of the best. My classmates in medical school consisted of many biochemistry majors, but the ability to really think about people in terms of how they approach their lives and pathology turns out to be far more important than much of the science that we all studied. This is best derived from a truly liberal arts background. I live in a religiously conservative community, and my patients often comment on how much they appreciate me knowing what makes them "tick" from a religious perspective. I am so thankful for the education and attitudes that I received in the Department.  

-William O Brant ’91, MD