SOCO Alumni Spotlight: Medicine and Global Health with Dr. Don Zimmer
The 2025–26 Genesis cohort at the Institute for Social Concerns is welcoming local ND alums back to campus to speak on how transformational experiences rooted in service and justice have shaped their lives and career paths.
Join us to hear Dr. Don Zimmer ’04, Emergency Physician and Director of Medical Education, Beacon Health Systems, as he reflects on how transformational experiences rooted in service and justice have shaped both his life and his career path.
Dr. Donald Zimmer graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2004 after completing the pre-professional program in the College of Arts and Letters with a degree in Liberal Studies. During his time at Notre Dame, he found himself unsettled by questions of inequality, suffering, and global injustice, questions that ultimately shaped the trajectory of his vocation. In 2002, during a summer immersive experience with the Institute for Social Concerns, Dr. Zimmer worked in Honduras at Casa del Corazón in San Pedro Sula, serving children orphaned by HIV/AIDS. This experience sparked his enduring commitment to global health and service in low-resource settings.
Dr. Zimmer earned his medical degree from Indiana University and went on to train in emergency medicine, completing Residency at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota where he developed expertise in high-acuity and critical care environments. Throughout his career, Dr. Zimmer has worked extensively in low-resource settings, including Haiti, Kenya, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and the Bahamas. In Haiti, he collaborated with the Red Cross and the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. He also worked with the Notre Dame Lymphatic Filariasis Program. He has also served on a SWAT team as a tactical physician and has additional training in international and wilderness medicine, further expanding his ability to respond to emergencies across diverse and resource-limited contexts.
Dr. Zimmer is currently an attending emergency physician at Memorial Hospital in South Bend and serves as Director of Medical Education for Beacon Health Systems, where he continues to integrate clinical excellence, education, and a deep commitment to global health equity.
Dr. Zimmer will speak on the role that these and other transformative experiences during his time at Notre Dame and with the Institute for Social Concerns have had on his own professional and personal development.