Humans of ASAR - Padmavathy Krishna Kumar

“Just like every other MBBS aspirant, I joined the course anticipating an exciting life in the future as a practising doctor.

However, as I navigated through each year of medical school, I realised that I was more inclined towards finding a solution to a health problem at the community level. The common saying 'Prevention is better than cure' started making more sense to me.? I was viewing every topic I studied or every new patient through a public health lens. For example, I would ask myself questions like has the government framed any policies or executed any health programmes at the local level to combat XYZ disease? What would follow is a huge amount of time spent reading and understanding what is being done and what can be done further to improve the current scenario. By sheer chance, I happened to find out about ASAR, which was working on some amazing public health projects and was also taking the projects to several national and international publications and conferences. And the best part? It was a team composed of mostly medical students!

I finally joined ASAR in October 2021 and slowly but steadily, I started working on several projects. From joining as a research intern who was allotted just one project, I slowly gained the confidence to take up different types of projects under ASAR.? Be it writing blogs, working with The Lancet's Commission on Reimagining India's Health Systems team on a project related to HRH in India, participating in a Journal Club session, presenting a paper at the SU-CUGH? international conference, leading ASAR's podcast series Awaaz and hosting its very first episode, to publishing my very first preprint - I have quite a few milestones to my credit thanks to ASAR!

All of my achievements are not mine alone. I am grateful to the founders of ASAR for allowing me to work with the team for nearly 2 years now. They have created an exemplary and enjoyable work culture for all of their members and have often encouraged their members to explore and bring in new ideas constantly. Their mentorship for each project undertaken deserves a special mention as despite their busy schedules, they still manage to make time to oversee and supervise every minute detail about their projects! Moreover, the healthy discussions on the ASAR WhatsApp group led by Siddhesh and taken forward by other members related to many public health topics published in newspaper op-eds or scientific journals from across the world have been a learning experience in their unique manner!??

It is the group's collective passion towards ASAR and the field of public health that motivated me to enjoy and learn something new about this field every day.? I strongly believe that the presence of a cohesive group of like-minded people within ASAR is what forms its backbone - I am extremely grateful to have had an opportunity to work with some very brilliant medical, engineering and humanities students from India and outside and it has helped enhance my knowledge and perspectives in so many ways. And yes I also have a bigger friend circle now thanks to ASAR.?

In a nutshell, working with ASAR was all about learning, unlearning and relearning with some extremely wonderful people. It has played a huge role in shaping my future career goals and I am eager to see ASAR as an organisation move into the next phase of working hand in hand with some top organisations at the national and international levels to contribute significantly to healthcare policy-making and execution!

Currently, Padmavathy Krishna Kumar is an intern at Adichunchanagiri Institute of Medical Sciences.