UC Davis medical student chosen as a 2006 Global Health Fellow

Roxanne Aga, 28, continues to train for fight against future pandemics

Roxanne Aga, a second-year medical student, has studied tuberculosis in Pakistan, on the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe and among the homeless in San Francisco. Now the 28-year-old UC Davis School of Medicine student has a new challenge.

Aga is among 12 medical and public health students worldwide selected as a 2006 Global Health Fellow. The honor means she will travel to Geneva this summer to complete a two-month internship in global health policy and participate in the 2006 Global Health Fellows Program.

"I can't think of anyone better suited to take part in this program," said Dr. Vijaya Kumari, assistant dean for curriculum at the UC Davis School of Medicine, citing Aga's commitment to health care, her pride in her Pakistani roots and her initiative in advancing student activities.

"I foresee her as someone who becomes very active in health care and policymaking at the global level," Dr. Kumari said.

The Global Health Fellows Program is sponsored by Duke University's Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy in collaboration with the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva. The highly competitive program, which has included a Fulbright scholar and a former Peace Corps volunteer, is now in its second year.

Aga is the first student from UC Davis to participate in the program. Her participation in the program will be financially supported by the UC Davis School of Medicine.

While in Geneva, Aga will intern with the World Health Organization’s Department of HIV/AIDS. She will learn a programmatic approach to simplify and standardize health-care services delivered at front-line clinics in poor communities around the world and to help make the treatment of common diseases more efficient for governments and more effective for the people they serve.

After graduating from the University of Southern California in 2000, Aga earned a master's in public health at Tulane University in New Orleans. Aga, who is of both French and Pakistani descent, chose to study tuberculosis among Afghan refugees in Pakistan just before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

From Pakistan, Aga went on to study tuberculosis at the Louis Pasteur Institute's facility on the French island of Guadeloupe and among San Francisco's homeless population while working in a lab at Stanford University.

Bench science and community health work both fascinated her, but Aga decided her calling was medicine.

"I wanted to have a direct impact on patients' lives," she said.

As a student at UC Davis, Aga has kept up her interest in underserved communities by serving as the co-director of the student-run Shifa Community Clinic in Sacramento. The clinic primarily serves Muslims of South Asian and Middle-Eastern descent.

"I will appreciate the opportunity to be able to take a step back and look at health at the community and global levels," Aga said of her next challenge in Geneva. "I think medicine is moving toward that."