Pursuing Graduate Study with the Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship Program

This paper will step out of the comfort of the first world American lifestyle and look beyond to the health and social issues around the world. The World Health Organization (WHO) is the leading stakeholder in advancing the awareness and support on global health issues along with the United Nations (UN) and other governmental and nongovernmental agencies. Only once the issues of these vulnerable people are identified can these organizations move forward in addressing and prioritizing the rapidly evolving global health agenda. The Millennium Development Goals will be defined briefly, however, since their goal completion date has ended, a future look at follow on program, Sustainable Development Goals seems the best place

I concentrated my Master’s studies in international health, and, to understand and experience health from an international perspective, felt it was important to live and be educated overseas. Studying in Australia, I was exposed to, not only cultural differences, but systematic, political, and infrastructure differences, and I began to understand how what one has access to influences their life.

I was previously an Albanian citizen. I was raised surrounded by a violent civil war and civil unrest in the nation which is still nowadays plagued by corruption and extreme economic inequalities. Becoming a US citizen was for me an unimaginably great opportunity for which I feel in debt to my now fellow Americans. For this reason, my ultimate career goal is to give back to the great community that has taken me in as one of their own by tackling the problem of inequality between neighborhoods in New York. As a future physician, my goal will be to work in economically disadvantaged areas to not only treat, but also educate children, teenagers, and young adults about their personal health care. With the opportunities that the Summer Public Health Scholars Program can offer me, I plan to ultimately play my part in the nationwide effort of eliminating inequalities of populations in disadvantaged environment so that every American citizen of all ages may one day witness the great opportunities and true equalities that are promised to them under our great

Good, accessible healthcare has always been a part of my life. This summer I got to see firsthand that this is not the case for everyone. I knew disparities in healthcare were prevalent in the world, but seeing it in person instead of reading about it in a global health textbook opened up a whole new door for me. As I have reflected on these experiences, I have come to the realization that me becoming a doctor is not about “me” necessarily. I have the opportunity to gain a good education and contribute to this world, which many people do not have, and I cannot think of a better way to do this than to help improve health. With my medical degree, I want to go and work in Zambia, and really any other country which faces large disparities in access to quality health care because I have been fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to enter the medical profession and it is time I use the resources I have to help the global community solve this issue.

First, before I unfold the reasons as to why I deserve the honor of receiving this well-esteemed scholarship, I would like to begin by saying that it would be a privilege to stand among the proficient students who are being considered for this award. All things considered, this scholarship holds the key for many possibilities of success. And since senior year, I have been eagerly and ebulliently waiting for an opportunity to delineate how my future aspirations, goals and financial challenges will facilitate my chances of achieving the Rotary Club scholarship.

In my life, I have experienced the incredible work healthcare professionals can provide and how lack of access to care can lead to dire consequences. Growing up in my village in Bangladesh, I was first hand witness to this lack of adequate healthcare. I had to watch my sisters deliver babies without training, I had to witness an aunt suffer in an agony due to the lack of adequate healthcare facility, but my most vivid experience of this lack of healthcare came when I was the victim of an acid attack and had to wait three days to receive medical attention. Due to this attack, I have third degree burn on approximately ninety percent of my body, and left me blind in one eye. Due to the lack of adequate health care in Bangladesh, two organizations, “Healing the Children” and “Naripokkho”, decided to provide me with medical care in the United States. It was there, that I was eventually exposed to all the wonderful work that could be done by doctors and other healthcare professionals. I have had approximately thirty reconstructive surgeries to repair my nose, eyelids and part of my forehead that was perforated through my skull. These experiences have inspired me to want to become a doctor, with the hope of giving back to my local community in Bangladesh, United States and globally.

The world faced a stark reality at the turn of the century. Amidst unprecedented new wealth and powerful new technologies, millions were still getting sick and dying from diseases and life expectancies were actually falling. Therefore, in September 2000, 189 country representatives adopted the Millennium Development Goals to focus on time limited commitments to reduce poverty and promote human development in order to reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, combat HIV/AIDs, malaria and other disease by 2015.(WHO, 2008). The challenge for meeting this deadline of goals was perceived as emergent and had a powerful effect for transforming the long-standing problem of global public health. It was perceived that globalization was putting the social cohesiveness of many countries under stress and that the health systems as key constituents of our contemporary societies were clearly not performing as well as they could and should.

One global health challenge is the deficit in the amount of health professionals globally. Crisp and Chen (2014) acknowledge that the faltering amount of health professionals are being stressed by “demographic changes, epidemiologic shifts, and redistribution of the disability burden”. Worldwide, anyone is capable of suffering from global warming or diseases. Becoming a health professional requires knowledge of many ailments and diseases and in order to assess this information, they need to attend school. With how interconnected science and technology has become, health professionals are now traveling for the enterprise. Their patients are also traveling for medical treatment. Twenty-five percent of doctors in the United States are from overseas. Medical tourism to countries such as Thailand and Singapore are increasing at twenty percent per year. The education of a health professional varies from region to region. The schooling of most health professionals varies country to country. In the United States, it’s four years of university and then another four years of medical school. In the UK, the regimen is between five to six years of post-high school education. The number of doctors in the world is 9.2 million, nurses are 18.1 million. The US has 4% of the world’s doctors and 17% of the world’s nurses. Future projections estimate that by 2020, that there will be an insufficient amount of doctors and nurses and will get even worse by 2025. Countries such as India, China,

For most of my high school career, I have strongly considered the field of education in my exploration of colleges and careers. School has always been something I enjoyed, because I love to learn. I have realized teaching is the best option for me; teaching tends to be a mutual relationship of learning and teaching for both students and their educators. I believe the Rotary Scholarship will enable me to gain the experience, resources, instruction, and skill set required of me in preparation for my career in education. By instilling the value of learning in my students, they have the potential to enhance the wellbeing and mindfulness of  the community and their fellow citizens, because they will have developed an appreciation for all aspects of their community and an understanding of each other.

In addition to the service-run clinic, The University of Arizona College of Medicine-Phoenix offers the Global Health Program that will allow me to individualize my medical training and pursue a of medicine I am particularly interested. It is essential to understand that in increasingly globalized society, global health is a public health concern for all. With the knowledge such program will give me, I hope to one day as a physician make a meaningful impact in my ancestral homeland where third world diseases are rampant.

I have always been aware of global issues and needing to understand what is happening in the world has always been important to me. However, I never understood global concerns through a health paradigm. Many of the concepts presented in this course were not new to me, as I have been an active participant in global issues and organizations, such as Spread the Net Campaign to end malaria, as well as many different human rights causes. However, the new insight I gained was in regards to

The first year of my program would allow me to expand my knowledge on global health issues and the use of policy to influence those issues. I am particularly interested in health disparities and learning about how and why certain diseases and outbreaks disproportionately affect specific populations of people. By learning more about epidemiology I can learn the skills necessary to development preventative measures or medical training specific to those populations. In my second year, I believe that I will gain the skills necessary to run a hospital or healthcare system or organization. The modules associated with the module will allow me to enhance critical thinking abilities necessary when solving complex problems in the context of healthcare. I anticipate that these two independently comprehensive programs, together will provide me the tools necessary to accomplish my career goals. My hope is that the Global Health and International Health Management programs will combine epidemiology research, population disparities, health policy and healthcare systems management outside of the scope of U.S. healthcare. It is my vision that the tools I learn here will equip me to influence United States healthcare reform and establish global healthcare

In order for me to have a meaningful impact, I will need to be equipped with the vast knowledge that a course of graduate study in public health will provide. Studying health policy and management will especially be beneficial in furthering my understanding on how to handle administrative roles not only assisting people that are currently ill, but also preempting illness in communities that are the least equipped to handle it. To affect positive change on a large scale, my goal is to become a Legislative Policy Advisor, and to use my expertise to advocate for policy that increases access to healthcare, and more specifically to preventative care to those who need it most. The Affordable Care Act has expanded access to healthcare in ways many longtime advocates never thought possible. However, I believe there is so much more that can be done to help, like facilitating ways that allow people to circumvent existing laws that restrict treatment, and addressing the health crises faced by both our poor urban and rural communities. I should be accepted into ______ at ______ because I bring a unique perspective, being one of only a handful of biology and political science double majors, along with my intrinsic motivation to accomplish my goals using a breadth of experience in two widely disparate

Member States acknowledged that achieving Universal Health not only requires policy efforts to ensure an appropriate density of human resources for health (HRH), but also need to focus on ensuring an even geographic and social distribution of HRH, offering better economic incentives and work conditions to retain HRH in remote and underserved areas and prevent transnational migration, reshaping education programs to fit the new models of care based on a stronger first level of care and integrated health service delivery networks, and improving quality and performance so that the health personnel meet the health needs of people and communities along their life cycle with an intersectoral, intramural and extramural approach. ,

For my master’s program, I hope to develop my understanding of politics, economic policies and strategies about the past, present and future in terms of dealing with global issues. The fields I want to specifically delve into are humanitarian assistance and international development. In regard to poverty reduction and educational accessibility, I will perform research on the support for young children in underdeveloped countries and low-income families, and for their parents’ self-reliance. It will also be meaningful to research the policies for solving conflicts that occur when refugees and displaced people settle down, and investigate how the international community and organizations can contribute to this matter.