What Inspires Medical Students to Go Above and Beyond at the Start of Their Career?

When medical students start to shift gears and home in on the specialty they want to focus on, they may decide to devote time and attention to project related to that specialty of medicine. Saba Ahmed is a great example of a student who pursued her interests outside of her regularly scheduled coursework.

As a medical student at Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences College of Osteopathic Medicine in Yakima, Washington, Saba, who was interested in infectious disease, devoted her time to conducting an analysis of the impact of COVID-19 and Long-COVID on sexual health through a study called  CU-COMMITS (Columbia University Addresses COVID-19 unMet MedIcal Needs to Transform liveS). CU-COMMITS is one of many studies led by investigators at the Columbia Research Unit (CRU) within the Division of Infectious Diseases at Columbia University Irving Medical Center.

After getting to know about Saba Ahmed last summer, it is not surprising to hear how she has taken on even more projects since then. To keep up to date with all of Saba’s accomplishments, we conducted another interview to ask Saba some questions about the CU-COMMITS study and where she is now  

To start, I asked Saba a couple of questions about what ultimately inspired her to become a doctor and pursue work in infectious diseases. Her response was this:

Ever since I was little, I always wanted to be a doctor.  I had a family medicine physician that really inspired me.

She continued:

Specifically, working with lower socioeconomic families and underrepresented communities, that really inspired me to want to do the same and give back [...].

Saba took her inspiration from people in her life, and she put it toward work for underserved communities. From a young age, she followed her growing interests. 

Saba became a RAMP Scholar during the summer of 2023. RAMP is a scholarship from the HIV Vaccine Trials Network for medical students who want to learn about HIV prevention research. Wanting to know about Saba’s experience as a RAMP Scholar, I searched for answers on why she applied for a RAMP scholarship; she shared that she wanted to learn “more about HIV and sexual health and what I can do as a future physician and scientist.”

She also described what the RAMP experience was like:

Being a RAMP scholar is really awesome, especially for someone like me who is interested in infectious disease and HIV work. I was able to go to Columbia and see how they took care of people that see physicians at Columbia. I also got to observe patient interaction along with the participants part of the study (CU-COMMITS). Being able to work with other students who are also passionate about infectious diseases and serving underrepresented communities is really important to me.

Also, I wanted to learn more about her specific interests in the CU-COMMITS Study:

It’s interesting to see how COVID-19, sexual health, and HIV play a role with how those socioeconomic factors and the social determinants of health all come together. Getting information and seeing how we can better serve the population there and what requirements need to be met for COVID-19, HIV and STIs all play a role together.

Moreover, the process of becoming so involved in such an impactful study required more attention and time than many may think. Saba’s hard work, devotion and energy she devoted to the study really showed as she described the project and its processes.

Something about research that I always continue to figure out is that there's always trial and error. If it doesn't work, you have to do something else and just be really flexible.

Wondering about the expectations versus the results of the study so far, I asked about what the hypothesis was and what Saba’s perspective was on what she expected the outcome to be. Saba said that the CU-COMMITS study was studying several different questions:

The first one was, ‘Is Long-COVID associated with lower sexual health satisfaction?’.

Then, ‘whether these associations are influenced by different social determinants of health’.

Third, we were interested in studying if  ‘Individuals with past COVID-19 infection differ in their risk perceptions towards other infections like sexually transmitted infections (STI) and Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) compared to those who have not been diagnosed with COVID-19.’ Originally, I also assumed that those who had COVID-19 would have lower sexual health satisfaction, but that didn't necessarily become the case.

Saba had seen results that were quite different from the hypothesis or what she had expected. There were some surprising results that I wanted to know more about, so I explored.

Something that we did find that I thought was interesting was that [people] who are deemed lower vulnerability  to HIV (meaning lower risk of coming into contact and  becoming infected), they had more Covid diagnoses. Which is interesting because we thought it would be the opposite.

Lastly, I had asked about what her next steps were for going on with the project—if she was going to continue working on it or shift gears to take on a new study. Expressing her commitment to the CU-COMMITS study, Saba also provided insight on what the next steps for the study will consist of:

The next steps that we're going to be looking at are the severity of Long-COVID and [...] correlation with sexual health, including many more behavioral pieces.

Saba has done an exceptional job with the CU-COMMITS project, and her motivation is inspiring. Saba shares her interest and willingness to take on other challenging projects in the future that will provide more learning opportunities. Her drive to learn and to help others is a strong quality of a doctor who has the passion and motivation that is essential to success in the medical field.

Since our interview in the summer of 2024, Saba together with Jenny Li presented the results of her project at an international conference, HIV Research for Prevention, October 2024, in Lima, Peru. They are now writing up the article with the team. Congratulations, Saba!