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Communications & Public Affairs
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Leadership in Addressing Health Disparities Through Policy and Service Earns National Award
for UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School Student
New Brunswick, NJ -- Shazia Mehmood, a third-year medical student at UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, has been selected as one of this year’s Herbert W. Nickens Medical Student Scholars by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). The scholarship award is one of five nationwide given to medical students who are leaders in the effort to eliminate inequities in medical education and health care.
“Shazia’s long-time commitment to providing service to the underserved and working toward the reduction, and eventual elimination, of health care disparities as well as her excellent performance as a medical student make her an outstanding choice for this prestigious award,” said David Seiden, PhD, associate dean for Student Affairs at the medical school, who nominated Ms. Mehmood for the award.
Selected as a Nickens Scholar for the commitment she has shown to eliminate healthcare disparities since beginning her tenure in medical school, Ms. Mehmood, of Somerset, NJ, was presented with the award and $5,000 scholarship during the AAMC’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C., on Monday, November 8. The award is named for Herbert W. Nickens, MD, the AAMC’s first vice president of Community and Minority Programs, who established groundbreaking programs designed to address the critical need for minority physicians and improvements in minority health status.
Ms. Mehmood’s interest in health disparities and policy began in high school and developed further when she was an undergraduate at Drexel University where she founded an American Medical Student Association (AMSA) chapter and took on leadership roles for health policy and multi-cultural education initiatives.
Among many honors, Ms. Mehmood was one of 14 students in the Philadelphia area chosen to attend a roundtable discussion and reception with His Royal Highness Prince Charles at the International House of Philadelphia in January 2007.
During her first year at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Ms. Mehmood served as a nationally-elected leader for AMSA. She has served for the past two years as the national policy coordinator for AMSA’s Race, Ethnicity and Culture in Health Committee and currently serves as AMSA’s national policy chair and co-legislative director. As a member of these and several other national AMSA groups, she has prepared, among other educational programs, lunchtime lectures on immigrant health and health disparities for medical students to present at medical schools across the country.
As a second-year medical student, Ms. Mehmood was accepted into the Global Health Fellows Program through Duke University. The program accepted 17 individuals nationwide and provided support for them through an internship in Geneva, Switzerland. Ms. Mehmood subsequently accepted an intern position in the Patient Safety Programme for the World Health Organization (WHO). As an intern for 10 weeks during the summer of 2009, Ms. Mehmood conducted primary qualitative research for the WHO.
Ms. Mehmood has been equally engaged in health policy and the elimination of health disparities at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, serving as the Health Policy Fellow for the local AMSA chapter and coordinating the Health Policy non-credit elective at the medical school. As a first-year medical student, she volunteered as a student doctor for the Promise Clinic, a student-run facility serving the homeless and medically-underserved in New Brunswick. During her first two years, she served on the steering committee for the clinic and as a scheduler, responsible for running the clinic on a weekly basis. Now in her third year, Ms. Mehmood serves as one of three managers and hopes to continue as the Clinic Director in her fourth year.
About UMDNJ-ROBERT WOOD JOHNSON MEDICAL SCHOOL
As one of the nation’s leading comprehensive medical schools, UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School is dedicated to the pursuit of excellence in education, research, health care delivery, and the promotion of community health. In cooperation with Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, the medical school’s principal affiliate, they comprise New Jersey’s premier academic medical center. In addition, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School has 34 other hospital affiliates and ambulatory care sites throughout the region.
As one of the eight schools of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey with 2,800 full-time and volunteer faculty, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School encompasses 22 basic science and clinical departments, hosts centers and institutes including The Cancer Institute of New Jersey, the Child Health Institute of New Jersey, the Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine, the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute, and the Stem Cell Institute of New Jersey. The medical school maintains educational programs at the undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate levels for more than 1,500 students on its campuses in New Brunswick, Piscataway, and Camden, and provides continuing education courses for health care professionals and community education programs. To learn more about UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, log on to rwjms.umdnj.edu. Find our fan page at www.Facebook.com/RWJMS and follow us on Twitter www.twitter.com/UMDNJ_RWJMS.
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