NORWAY – Timothy A. Churchill, president and CEO of Western Maine Health, has announced the arrival of the Maine Medical Center Tufts University School of Medicine Class of 2015 medical students. Kenneth Chin, Rachel Elaison and Bethany Darling will complete their nine-month rural medicine clerkship at Stephens Memorial Hospital.

Chin was born and raised in Portland. He attended Northeastern University in Boston and graduated with a degree in biology with a minor in religion. As an undergraduate, Chin was a research assistant at the Harvard School of Public Health, as well as at the Dyax Corporation.

Post-graduation, he managed a laboratory at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital where he worked on projects that tried to improve therapeutics in ovarian cancer.

Eliason was born in Portland and spent most of her childhood living in North Yarmouth. She attended Dalhousie University, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where she received a bachelor of science degree in neuroscience with distinction. During the school year, Eliason worked as a laboratory assistant in a lab focused on behavioral neuroscience and in the summer would shadow in the ER of St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center in Lewiston.

Most recently, Eliason has worked for Woodfords Family Services as a behavioral health professional, in which she provided in-home support to children with developmental disorders to help them gain and strengthen functional life skills in order to live as independently as possible.

Darling was born in Lewiston and raised in Kents Hill. She attended Colby College where she received a bachelor of arts in environmental studies. She later went on to take pre-med science courses at Northeastern University, UMaine Augusta and the University of Southern Maine.

Since getting her degree, Darling has served as a counselor for Wyonegonic Camps in Denmark, a veterinary technician at the Annabessacook Veterinary Clinic in Monmouth and an emergency room technician for St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Brighton, Mass.

Stephens Memorial Hospital was the first rural medicine teaching site selected for the Maine Medical Center Tufts University School of Medicine clerkship program, now in its third year. Through this partnership students have experienced first-hand what it is like to live and practice medicine in a rural community like Oxford Hills.

Stephens Memorial Hospital is a member of the MaineHealth family. For more information, visit www.wmhcc.org.