Students graduating with a Master of Public Health (MPH) typically have not completed medical school—but Varsha Venu, MBBS, is no ordinary student. Before enrolling in the Master’s program at the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Dr. Venu had already received her MBBS degree at Kasturba Medical College in Mangalore, India. As part of her internship training, she practiced community health—and it was during that time she found her true passion.
“I recognized the importance of public health when I realized that patients were coming in with diseases that could have been easily prevented if the health of the community was improved,” Dr. Venu says. “Without good public health, the entire community suffers, and that is probably the biggest reason why I chose not to become a practicing doctor, but instead to take on roles that would ensure that I could give the best care to an entire community and not just individual patients. Public health enables me to contribute to society in a more holistic way.”
As part of her MPH training, Ms. Venu did a part-time internship at the North HELP Coalition, a Mount Sinai program dedicated to improving emergency preparedness of medically vulnerable populations and their health care providers. She focused much of her attention on dialysis, an area that is close to her heart since her grandfather passed away from kidney disease without adequate access to dialysis in India.
Outpatient dialysis providers everywhere face unique challenges during natural disasters and, most recently, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Ms. Venu worked with the Coalition to provide preparedness training, tools, and advocacy efforts, which grew into her capstone project.
Throughout her two years in the Mount Sinai program, Ms. Venu also served as a teaching assistant (TA) for three courses, which she found invaluable to her training. “Being a TA is a very good way of interacting with your peers while also working with some of the best professors and directors in the field,” she says.
Ms. Venu, who was born in India and raised in Dubai, plans to stay in the United States after graduation to build on the knowledge she gained here. “I want to contribute to this society in an even greater way,” she says. Her goal after graduation is to combine her passions for public health policy and health care management.
“I want to take on a role that enables me to assure that hospitals are giving the best care to the entire community, while at the same time, ensuring that the entire team of doctors, nurses, and ancillary staff, are all well looked after,” she says.