KU School of Medicine-Wichita

MPH FEATURE MPH: The future doctor Growing up in Wichita, Saniya Ahmed, MPH — a second-year medical student — always wanted to be a doctor. As the child of immigrants whose family was uninsured or underinsured, she helped her parents navigate the health system and receive care at a safety net clinic. Ahmed had to make the financial and health choices around doctor's visits and getting lab work. She's volunteered with the JayDoc Community Clinic and the county health department and worked at the International Rescue Committee for refugees, which exposed her to medicine, underserved populations and the type of doctor she strives to be. "I've always wanted to be the kind of physician and person that is known first and foremost as an advocate," she says. Although interested in medicine, she was more interested in the natural world. She majored in health sciences at Wichita State but, "terrified of the MCAT," instead entered the MPH program. The experience provided the "mental boost" for medical school. From seeing motivational interviewing in action to an elective rural rotation in Dodge City, "convinced me to be a family medicine physician for life." "It's really important for anyone who goes into primary care to know about public health work, to be mindful of public health professionals, to listen and to collaborate." 9 "A lot of times, people who have a substance use disorder find themselves walking on a dark path alone," said Elizabeth Ablah, Ph.D., MPH, CPH, "We ask the physician to be the light that walks with the patient and brightens that path." "We have not seen a decrease in opioid use disorder," she said. "There's probably a lot of people who are untreated or undertreated. And we need people willing to treat the adolescents and pregnant and the higher-risk patients. We really need several more in our community." Ablah noted that the state recently approved the construction of a new psychiatric hospital to be located in south central Kansas, addressing a severe need exacerbated by patients with substance use disorders. "If you think about the psychiatric hospital coming in a couple of years, we are not prepared. So, I am thrilled that we are in a place where we can start developing that capacity." K2 synthetic marijuana epidemic, which claimed clusters of lives in communities across the United States. "I wondered why would (K2 users) keep doing this to themselves?" She practiced in Dallas — where one of the deadly clusters had occurred — before returning to Wichita, where she has worked at a local opioid treatment program, residential treatment centers and hospital consultation. Haynes said she has always enjoyed "the challenging cases that were not straightforward … and seeing the changes in (a patient's) life and that improvement was very rewarding." There's no question the county could use more specialists, she said, noting that she "had to turn down opportunities because I don't have the time to work everywhere that needs a person."

• Cover