Spring 2016 Fellows Yearbook

Spring 2016 Fellows

Gathi Abraham Psychiatry, GW

Reshem Agarwal Pediatrics, Children’s National

Mohammed Azam Psychiatry, Howard

My name is Gathi Abraham, I am from Chicago and attended Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine. I am a PGY-3 in Psychiatry. I am interested in learning about health policy because during medical school, I took a gap year to study public health. Toward the end of the year, I took a required policy class and was shocked how some of the "big-level" policy decisions are made. The decision process seemed leagues apart from the science- driven way we were used to thinking in medicine. While this was disheartening, I realized that if I hoped to stand any chance of making a larger impact, I would have to learn more about the way health policy works and thinks.

I am a second year resident in Pediatrics at Children's National Medical Center. I am originally from Southern California where I completed my undergraduate and medical degrees at USC. I came to DC to be apart of my residency's community health track in hopes of developing skills in utilizing community resources to better serve my patients, recognizing that environment and socioeconomics are powerful determinants of health. I am interested in health policy because I believe that it lays out a silent framework that dictates how patients interact with the healthcare system. As a clinician I think it is important to learn about how these policies impact our patients, especially those who have limited resources. I hope that by learning about how health policies are crafted and the different variables at play, I can learn to better advocate for my patients on a legislative level as well as by encouraging them to maximally utilize what the system has to offer them.

Dr. Azam was born and raised in Beaumont, Texas. He graduated from St. George’s University School of Medicine in 2012. Currently, he is a 4 th year psychiatry resident in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Howard University Hospital. Dr. Azam's interest in health policy grew from his undergraduate studies in political science at Emory University. He has particular interests in health disparities and mental health parity.