Share this story

Soni and Fahey honored by Consortium of Universities for Global Health for best student manuscript

Paper describing UMMS trainees’ successful international collaboration published in Global Health: Science and Practice

  Apurv Soni and Nisha Fahey, DO
 

Apurv Soni and Nisha Fahey, DO

MD/PhD student Apurv Soni and pediatrics resident Nisha Fahey, DO, have been honored by the Consortium of Universities for Global Health for submitting the best student manuscript. In addition to receiving their award at the Consortium’s last annual meeting, their paper has been published in the current issue of the journal Global Health: Science and Practice.

The paper presents the multidisciplinary global health research and education program that they founded and initially developed without extramural seed funding. Soni and Dr. Fahey originated what has evolved into two robust, interconnected global health projects described in the paper while they were still undergraduates at Boston University.

The interconnected projects are Research and Advocacy for Health in India (the acronym spells RAHI, which means pathfinder in Hindi) and Support and Action towards Health-Equity in India (whose acronym SATHI means partner in Hindi). Together they now form a multidisciplinary partnership between UMass Medical School and Charutar Arogya Mandal, a medical college and a tertiary care center in the mostly low-income rural region of Gujurat in western India. The projects address health care needs of rural Indian communities focusing on maternal and child health, trauma-related injuries, and cardiovascular disease.

“RAHI-SATHI is the culmination of a series of trainee-led research and education initiatives that received institutional support in the form of faculty mentorship and seed funding from the UMMS Office of Global Health,” wrote Soni and Fahey. Co-authors include numerous UMMS faculty and students who have been involved in the projects and will sustain them into the future.

Related stories on UMassMedNow:
MD/PhD student expanding research and advocacy for health care in India
UMMS receives translational science training grant