‘Right here, right now’

医科学生可以通过选择非传统的职业道路来改变世界，这可能会把他们带到特别需要他们服务的独特地方.

这是十大菠菜台子威廉博蒙特医学院的一位校友说的，他最近回来给三年级的医学院学生讲课.

Saad Sahi, M.D., OUWB ’15, presented, “Meaning, Purpose, 和全球视角”——这是他从对外开放商学院第一届课程毕业以来的经历，他对这个话题非常精通.

In 2023, 他在加州大学旧金山分校完成了外科研究员的培训, where he was stationed at a Navajo Nation hospital in New Mexico, and then a health care center in Uganda.

此外，他最近在布里格姆大学开始了为期两年的急性护理外科临床研究 & Women’s Hospital in Boston.

“So much of what I do started here at OUWB,” Sahi said after his presentation. “It was a very full circle moment…knowing that I sat in these same seats, and I’ve been able to do everything I’ve wanted to do and that it is possible.”

‘That’s what I wanted to do’

萨希出生于巴基斯坦，他说他在包括沙特阿拉伯在内的6个不同的国家生活过, Holland, Canada, and Italy before moving to the U.S. at 15 to attend the Loomis Chaffee boarding school in Connecticut.

他说，与洛克菲勒家族的后代一起上学，用他叔叔在巴基斯坦工作的工厂生产的足球踢足球，这是一种超现实的经历.

“It was a lot to make sense of as a 15-year-old kid,” said Sahi.

Making sense of things would become a driving force in his life, starting in college, 当时他在波士顿东北大学获得了哲学学士学位.

那是他在东北大学的最后一年，有一次他走过校园，递了一张关于无国界医生纪录片放映的传单.

“I remember walking out of there thinking that’s what I wanted to do,” he said. “I saw myself in that documentary.”

2011年，Sahi开始在OUWB学习，他说他在那里获得了“一生难忘的经历”.”

It included a kind of epiphany when he was working on his Embark project on how to incorporate a global health perspective into medical education.

Specifically, he learned about the Copenhagen Consensus, 该项目旨在利用基于福利经济学理论的方法确定促进全球福利的优先事项, through cost-benefit analysis.

Among the top priorities, he learned, was strengthening surgical capacities.

他说:“那时我意识到，这不仅对我很重要，对我们所有人都很重要。. “I realized that there was something I could do surgically, especially since I had been interested in surgery since I started medical school.”

‘Changed everything for me’

In 2015, Sahi was matched at University of Texas at Austin Dell Medical School. His specialty was general surgery.

There weren’t any global aspects to his residency, but his commitment to working in global health never wavered. 

“In fact, 我的住院医师项目认为把全球健康作为职业有点疯狂,” he said.

Around the same time, three big reports were published that impacted views on surgery around the world.  

In 2015, 世界卫生组织世界卫生大会(WHA)通过WHA68号决议解决了手术的必要性.15, “加强紧急和基本外科护理和麻醉，作为全民健康覆盖的一个组成部分.” It was the 68^th WHA, but the first time surgery had been directly addressed by the WHA.

Also in 2015, the World Bank published the third edition of “Disease Control Priorities in Developing Countries强调了基于卫生系统分析等的具有成本效益的干预措施. Funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, it contained nine volumes. The first volume was “Essential Surgery.“这是外科手术第一次被确定为疾病控制优先事项的重中之重.

The third big event that happened around that time was publication of “The Lancet Commission on Global Surgery.Sahi说，这份大型报告是由来自世界各地30个国家的多个学术机构完成的，主要是为了确定全球手术护理方面的情况. Sahi said the findings were “alarming.”

“Number one, 5 billion people (globally) do not have access to safe, affordable surgical care or anesthesia care when they need it,” he said. “Number two, 313 million surgeries are done around the world every year. Only 6% of them happen in low-income countries. That’s astonishing.”

“When I saw that number, it changed everything for me,” he added.

When he finished his five-year residency in 2020, he didn’t have a job lined up.

That is, 直到他遇到了加州大学旧金山分校的人，并了解了该校的全球健康倡议.

‘Not that far removed’

Through a clinical fellowship, Sahi was involved with the UCSF Health, Equity, Action, and Leadership (HEAL) initiative. HEAL是一个建立在公平原则基础上的多学科全球卫生奖学金计划, justice, and solidarity. 

He went to a hospital in Shiprock, New Mexico and served as a surgeon at the Northern Navajo Medical Center.

Sahi在乌干达的Mbale地区转诊医院度过了他的第二年. He extended his fellowship one year, spending the first three months at Gallup Indian Medical Center in Gallup, New Mexico, followed by nine months back at Mbale.

去年夏天，他在布里格姆大学开始了为期两年的急性护理外科临床研究 & Women’s Hospital.

During his presentation last year to the OUWB M3s, Sahi highlighted several points of pride about his work thus far.

In Uganda, for example, 他是在手术台上安装摄像头的团队的一员，这样住院医生就可以观察和学习了. Using OUWB’s Robert J. 以卢卡斯协会为例，他在那里成立了一个兴趣小组，同样专注于外科手术. 此外，还建立了一个指导渠道，以帮助该地区更多的医科学生对外科手术感兴趣. (Most want to focus on infectious disease, he said.)

Further, 他帮助在当地开了一家咖啡馆和餐馆，利润的50%用于支付居民学费.

他还对加州大学旧金山分校在乌干达的努力将在未来五年内再培养20名外科医生感到自豪.

But, he said, a lot of work remains.

这些地方对外科医生的需求很大，他说这些地方“人手严重不足”.” Uganda, for example, has a population of about 45 million but only 185 surgeons.

Further, there is high demand for women surgeons. He pointed to Ethiopia as an example — a country where there are 370 surgeons, but only eight of them are women.

“有强有力的数据表明，当患者接受反映其自身人口结构的社区和提供者的护理时，他们的结果会更好,” said Sahi.

There is also a strong need for supplies.

“In about 86% of the world, 你在紧急情况下出现在医院，我们告诉家人去买缝合线, the gloves, the antibiotics, and bring it back,” he said. “If you can’t afford it, you die.”

Sahi said he knows what it feels like to be affected by such conditions, because that’s exactly why his grandfather died.

“This is not that far removed from any of you,” Sahi told the M3s.

‘Right here, right now’

When he concluded his presentation, Sahi说，他希望学生们在考虑职业道路时“真正花时间考虑什么是有意义的”.

“What do you love? What does the world need? What can you be paid for? What are you good at?” he asked. “如果你能在所有这些中间找到最佳点，那么你就很好.”

Berkley Browne, Ph.D., associate dean for student affairs, 他说，这样的建议正是为什么Sahi非常适合即将进入医学教育最后一年、即将确定自己将进入什么专业的大三学生. (His presentation was through the school’s PRISM program that is a multi-layered system of support, along with a four-year curriculum that focuses on personal growth, wellness, and career development.)

“我们希望在这一年结束时，给学生们一个机会，认真思考他们作为未来医生的目标,” she said. “这将赋予它们意义，并在全球范围内关注公平?”

她说，对学生们来说，从一个不久前站在他们立场上的人那里听到这样的信息是“强有力的”.

Sahi说，如果没有别的，他希望学生们能从他的演讲中学到一件大事.

“It’s remarkable what we can do on a global level to take care of each other, and you can start anywhere…. including right here, right now.”