Mona Challa Student, Management Without those little down bits, you can’t really appreciate the happier times. I knew from a very young age that medicine was what I wanted to do. Maybe because my dad had been like 'Hey, do you want to do medicine?' And as a six-year-old who wanted to be a rockstar princess, I was like 'Yeah, sure, okay, if that doesn’t work out, I’ll do this!' I've always known that medicine was what I wanted. My dad is from a small village in India and he framed it as if you are a doctor then you can always go back and provide support and help out people that need that. I was like 'Yeah, you know what, that feels good, being able to give back to the community in that way.' The last time I went to India was the summer of 2016. I did henna work to raise funds for charity and one of the ones I did it for was called HEAL, Health and Education for All. They’re an education-based not-for-profit in South India, and essentially, they’re a campus, a school for underprivileged children. I went back to India to visit family, but I also went to the school, because I had raised so many funds for them, I kind of wanted to see what was going on, and it was such a great experience. The campus was beautiful, the kids were amazing! There were a couple of days, because it was stormy, the power would go out, and everyone would just get together, and just tell stories and stuff, and there was just a lot of singing and dancing — it was a lot of fun! Growing up, I was always fascinated with science, and when I heard that Dal had the medical sciences program I knew that’s where I wanted to go, that’s what I want to be able to do, that program, see where that takes me. I took a lot of courses and electives in bioethics, sociology and global health. Doing all those courses, I realized that, 'Yes, we're doing really great stuff when it comes to developing science,' but there are bottom-of-the-pyramid needs that we need to address like infrastructure and organizational design. Those key elements that make the whole system work really well. I realized that especially in Nova Scotia, where our healthcare system still has so much room for improvement, I want to stay here and, as a physician, be able to address those systematic issues hopefully as a Public Health Officer one day. Learning about the MPA program, I learned that this was a program that would teach me about policy work and about organizational design and evaluation, and I thought that’s what I probably needed to do to gain that background. With a medical sciences background and an MPA background and then hopefully med school after that, I would have multiple sides of the story and a more holistic view. So I’d be better able to advocate for what works and what doesn’t work, and eventually help introduce new and exciting innovative ideas to Nova Scotia’s healthcare system. At the end of the day, even if I’m having a pretty hard day, I’m not really someone to voice it very much. If I’m having a hard day, I just want to be around other people. Just talking to other people, being able to agree with people on certain things, to have a good time and make sure other people are happy, which makes me realize, 'Okay, you know what, this is not the end of the world. Things are gonna get so much better.' I think that’s the biggest thing to realize. Things are going to get better. That’s how I like to see it. Without those little down bits, you can’t really appreciate the happier times. ← Rony ↑ Home Nimisha →
