Alumni
Course: 2023-2024
My name in Syeda Atika Bokhari and I am a French-Pakistani General Physician. I have lived and learnt in Ghana and Vietnam while growing up and have completed my medical studies in the city of Besançon in the East of France. I am currently doing my residency in Nantes (France). During my academic years, I have had the opportunity to work in different medical wards as well as invest my time in associative work especially regarding foreign student exchanges with the IFMSA. I recently worked alongside pediatricians in Yogjakarta (Indonesia) as well as Public Health professionals in remote areas of Java which taught me about the complexity of the relationship between environment and health.
“As a medical doctor by background, I had a difficulty choosing between two medical specialties Family medicine and Public health. One of my objectives joining this masters was to be able to complete my clinical training on the field while gaining knowledge on Global Health. When working with one patient at a time, having to focus on treatment rather than cure due to care scarcity,
I am enthusiastic about being able to grow my knowledge on social determinants of health among others. Indeed, when acting upon only one leverage such as medicine to achieve good health one is very quickly out of solutions and this course has taught me precise ways in which different fields of work must operate together in order to achieve the bigger goal of equity in health which inevitably goes hand in hand with reducing inequity in other aspects such as income, education, security, adequate environment.
The concept of « Health Policy » was also very obscure to me and has become much clearer thanks to our Professors. I had the objective to be more confident in my knowledge of the « health » state of population of the world and I feel I have gained tools and knowledge on the question to address matters with more confidence”.
My future engagement in Global Health
I am interested in exploring the benefits of digitalizing health and its different forms. Indeed, during the COVID epidemic, many countries made « vaccination passport » through national ID and a phone application to ease population movement. In Pakistan, vaccination summoning was done through phone number and each persons’ vaccine history was then linked to their SIM card. In France, a shared digital medical file has been created, this initiative has known many drawbacks especially from health professionals that are very attached to a traditional layout of health management. I believe there is a fine line between, yet another tool of population surveillance which our electronics already are, and giving each person control over their own life and health.I realized, with humility, that even though I have worked and studied in different countries and settings ranging from high to low income, I have a number of biases I must tackle in order to better understand where to put our efforts in order to reduce health inequities. For example, I had the notion that lower and middle income countries were less burdened by non communicable diseases than are higher income countries and therefor misevaluated the urgency to act upon related risk factors. I am highly motivated and feel a sense of commitment to come across other misconceptions I may have and possess tools to correct them in order to grow.
I definitely underestimated the importance of soft skills and competencies such as the famous « elevator pitch » in order to get a message across. Indeed, I always felt the more precise, the more information, the better chance of getting the response you wish from the counterpart you are addressing. I understand now all the parameters to take into account to give your message the best change of getting through to your public. I am very enthusiastic about having opportunities to put into practice technics taught by Professors and learn new methods and formats.
In France, instrumentalisation of the « State medical Assistance» ( AME, mechanism for foreigners in an irregular situation to gain access to care without out of pocket spending) by politicians is threatening its sustainability. This represents a very big step back for anyone who believes for access to health care for all. I strongly believe we can overcome such drawbacks and political barriers by learning from epidemics like COVID for example which highlight the need to transnational collaboration that take into account mass movement for different reasons. As president of the Union of Young GP in my region I am strongly involved in shaping the medical landscape of years to come and giving priority to a prevention, NCD oriented practice by implementing new subnational policies. Additionally, as a binational, I am eager to collaborate with Pakistani counterparts in order to work towards harmonisation of medical practices and ask as early as university medical training for doctors for example, which I believe are critical years in which we must start thinking Global.