… do impressive things now,” she told the publication.
Karekezi finished high school in Rwanda and then went to a local university on a full government scholarship. Her medical schooling journey then took her to Sweden ― her first time away from home. Her time in Sweden serendipitously introduced her to neurosurgery as it was the only department operating during the time period in which she was in the country.
“I knew nothing about neurosurgery, I had no training in brain anatomy,” Karekezi told The Star, who had initial plans to study radiology.
“We grew up with fear, but we grew up with survival instincts — we have to push, we have to get through this.” Karekezi fled Rwanda with her parents in 1994 when members of the Hutu ethnic group wiped out a large number of the Tutsi minority group. Due to the mass killings, more than two million refugees fled the country.