Arnav Mahajan - Medical Student
Hi there! My name is Arnav Mahajan, thanks for checking out my page. Since entering medical school, I have attempted to engage at the intersection of policy, technology and surgical care to gain deeper insight in how to begin to solve such issues of access.
The public health effects of surgical marginalisation became extremely poignant to me during the 2011 floods of Thailand. As a volunteer with the Red Cross, I was given the privilege of travelling to northern provinces to provide food and water to people trapped in their homes. In a public health emergency where surgical care was the least of my concerns, my view drastically changed after seeing how a post-operative complication could spiral into an emergency case due to lack of access; I became acutely aware of the importance of global surgery.
Clinically, my interest lies in surgical care and addressing the challenges in global surgical delivery particularly for economically and socially marginalised groups. I am seeking to disrupt surgical care within my local community through effective engagement in public health, and with targeted development of innovative digital health technologies.
I have had many amazing experiences where I have been able to delve deep into data of transplant centres in the Anglosphere, and their policies regarding kidney transplantation for prisoners; an under-served population that I have since advocated for. I have been able to engage with teams of social entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley developing innovative medical technologies with the goal of screening and operating on millions of children in rural India with congenital heart defects. Most recently, I have begun to evaluate digital health system preparedness in Malawi in the context of non-communicable disease with specific focus on addressing local stakeholder needs.