Student Spotlight

Anuradha Shetty
3rd Year MD/MPH Candidate – School of Public Health

Anuradha Shetty is a third-year MD/MPH Candidate. She has been the Director of the SUNY Downstate Asylum Clinic for the past two years where she has overseen a quarter of the cases completed by the clinic and pushed for a continuity of care initiative for the asylees.

A childhood dream coming to fruition

As long as Anu could remember, she always wanted to pursue a career in medicine. She recalls early childhood visits to the doctors office, noting, "I think I was one of the only kids in the waiting rooms of doctor’s offices that was actually excited to be there. I feel like I had a really good relationship with my pediatrician and from a young age I was telling people that I wanted to be a doctor."

Towards the end of her K-12 studies, she began volunteering as an EMT and shadowing/ volunteering in nursing homes and hospitals. That hands-on experience solidified her desire to pursue a career in healthcare. Anu started undergrad in 2016 at the City College of New York where she majored in biology and minored in public policy. At that point, she knew I wanted to pursue a career in medicine, but the world was changing with the presidency of Donald Trump and she became increasingly interested in politics and how policy influences all aspects of our life, including health. In her peer circle, she was inspired by friend who were pursuing degrees in public policy and journalism and introduced her to those fields. Subsequently, this sparked Anu's interest in finding a way to combining medicine and policy.

In addition to participating in medicine-related clubs, Anu began participating in public health-related research and writing for our campus’s magazine where she explored these topics.

"I think I was one of the only kids in the waiting rooms of doctor’s offices that was actually excited to be there. I feel like I had a really good relationship with my pediatrician and from a young age I was telling people that I wanted to be a doctor."

The road to research

Before coming to medical school, Anu was working on a project with the organization Doctors for Camp Closure, which helped connect asylees and refugees with medical centers that would provide reduced fee/ free healthcare. Through that project, they contact over 150 federally qualified health centers in New York City to get information on what free/ subsidized services they provided and how to go about making these appointments. Anu remembers, "It was really rewarding to work on such an awesome project like that in the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, where the vulnerable population of asylees and refugees might not know where they are able to get care. Based on that work, I knew I wanted to continue working with and helping that population, which is why I decided to start working with the SUNY Downstate Asylum Clinic."

Right now, they are working on a descriptive research manuscript analyzing the outcomes and success of a medical school student run asylum clinic and its implications on public health. While Anu attended the American Public Health Association Conference this past November presenting their abstract, she had a few medical students from schools that did not have an established asylum clinic asking her for advice and tips. Anu's hope is, "our research will help more students feel confident in understanding the obstacles and challenges of establishing an asylum clinic at their school and will also inspire them to pursue this very important work." Something important we have learned from analyzing our data is that our biggest obstacle to producing these affidavits is clinician retention. We have many students from various schools at Downstate and residents that are interested in helping us, but it is harder to find licensed clinicians, who are required for the final sign off, that feel confident in producing these affidavits. One solution we have come up with and are working on with an asylum clinic in Chicago is an Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes (ECHO) project for sustained asylum training and mentorship. The model is cohort-based and the intention is to build capacity of providers while also creating a community of providers who can collaborate with one another in the future. We are hoping to expand this effort to include as many clinics as possible with the hope that this will help the ubiquitous issue of physician recruitment and retention.

Challenges breaking through to discovery

When asked about some of the challenges Anu has faced on her research journey thus far, she said, "Something important we have learned from analyzing our data is that our biggest obstacle to producing these affidavits is clinician retention. We have many students from various schools at Downstate and residents that are interested in helping us, but it is harder to find licensed clinicians, who are required for the final sign off, that feel confident in producing these affidavits."

One solution that Anu and her team have worked on with an asylum clinic in Chicago, is an Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes (ECHO) project for sustained asylum training and mentorship. The model is cohort-based and the intention is to build capacity of providers while also creating a community of providers who can collaborate with one another in the future. They are hoping to expand this effort to include as many clinics as possible with the hope that this will help the ubiquitous issue of physician recruitment and retention.

"My advise to future trainees would be to try as many new experiences as possible. There were some opportunities that were presented to me that I was not sure if I wanted to really do and they ended up producing some of the most meaningful work I’ve done"

Impact of the Downstate community

Anu chose SUNY Downstate for a variety of reasons. Initially, she was interested in pursing an MPH in addition to my MD degree, and Downstate had the option to complete both concurrently which appealed to her. Additionally, working with the organization Doctors for Camp Closure inspired her to choose a school that allowed me continue helping asylees and refugees. Anu noted that, "Downstate was appealing since it had just officially opened its own asylum clinic and I knew I wanted to join and help shape is future". Anu likens the community around Downstate to that in Harlem and after working with and growing close to the Harlem community over 4 years, the transition to Downstate's community felt natural. "Before I was certain that I wanted to pursue my MPH at the same time as my MD degree I spoke to a physician who told me that people often regret the experiences they chose not to take versus the ones they pursued and that I should take the chance in doing them at the same time. I can’t thank him enough for the advice as I was exposed to so many opportunities through the school of public health."

In Anu's free time she can be found creating art, reading, and going to pilates. She prioritizes traveling as much as she can even if its just going on a weekend trip somewhere a couple of hours away: she is always planning her next travel destination. Her draw to New York city is that there is always something new to do or try.

What the future holds

Anu's future goal is to pursue a career in psychiatry and continue working in underserved areas. In five years, she hopes to be starting a fellowship in forensic psychiatry and continuing to produce forensic affidavits for asylees. Ultimately, Anu believes she will take all that she's learned during her time in the School of Public Health and continue to work on research that will influence immigrant populations

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse