Submitted by the parents of Tika Zbornik-Thompson.

Tika Zbornik-Thompson will be attending the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Medical School starting in July 2019.

UNC is rated No. 1 in the United States for primary care, and Zbornik-Thompson is thrilled to be accepted by her first choice of medical schools.

She graduated from Orcas High School in 2013 and then from Linfield College, McMinnville, Oregon, in 2017 with a degree in biology. After moving to Chapel Hill to join her husband Rhese Thompson (also an Orcas native and Ph.D. student in bio physics), Zbornik-Thompson began working in an optometry clinic as a technician to gain experience in a clinical setting.

Having grown up on Orcas, and shaped by the importance of community service, Zbornik-Thompson volunteers with a local mobile medical clinic providing migrant workers with basic care, as well as at a rape crisis center. In addition she often serves as a translator for hispanic patients.

The Montessori summer Spanish Camps planted their seed, so long ago! Thank you, Orcas Island, for all of the ways you support the island youth as they launch themselves out into the world.