I hope to be selected to earn the master's degree in public health in the United States, which will inspire and enable me to achieve a more global appreciation of the issues that we face today. Now a well-trained and highly motivated epidemiologist in my country, Saudi Arabia, I seek further, advanced training, with an eye to making my own talents and contribution increasingly international, addressing global issues, and helping to advance our profession in Saudi Arabia and beyond.
I have served as a public health and epidemiology professional in a variety of areas: including mass gatherings, trauma, oncology, pharmaceutical services, etc. Familiar with the policies and procedures of health care settings in Saudi Arabia, I am also an accomplished writer of research proposals and grant writing, manuscript submissions, and skilled at scientific writing and reporting. Proficient in innovative software programs, I am committed to doing all that I can to improve global public health.
Over the course of the past two years, 2 things have been foremost in my mind, climate change and COVID-19. Saudi Arabia is one of the hottest places on earth, with temperatures now frequently rising above 120 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade. Under direct sunlight, it is much hotter. It was hot when I was a child, but not this hot: I feel it every day, read about it, and I am deeply concerned that the entire world is in trouble because of unchecked climate change, which I fear will have widespread and disastrous consequences for global public health. Along with many others in my field, my worst nightmare is that COVID-19 is itself related to climate change and the destruction of natural habitats; and that COVID-19 will not be the last virus to emerge and kill millions of people in the not-too-distant future.
I ask for acceptance to an MPH program in America so that I will be prepared to help, assuming an increasing level of responsibility as my career progresses. I seek additional advanced training to make my maximum contribution to public health for many decades to come, always with a focus on Epidemiology primarily, especially in the Middle East, and Saudi Arabia in particular. The extreme heat itself has major public health consequences, not just in Saudi Arabia, but throughout the region. There are days where it is even hotter in Iraq than our country, and they have fewer resources to deal with the public health issues that arise because of these novel and deadly temperatures.
After my graduation, I completed a full-year internship for the first 6 months at KAIMRC, one of the largest research centers in the KSA. I also served at the Saudi Biobank and finished the last 7 months at King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Center. Working for the Ministry of Health and serving in hospitals has polished all my most valuable skills, which will help me to succeed in your program from day one. I am pleased that I serve as a Teaching Assistant from the same university from which I graduated, Princess Nourah Bint Abdul Rahman University (GPA of 4.84 out of five “first class honors”). I am pleased to report that my university sees me as a solid investment and is thus paying for my graduate education in America.
My first professional position was with the government’s Ministry of Population Health and the second was with the Global Centre for Mass Gatherings Medicine.
This second position set my mind on a process of globalization - where I ceased to think of health issues as existing only in a local context. Global Health issues will always play a significant role in my efforts to contribute to Public Health in the future, especially with respect to research. I began working at the center as a volunteer, helping with data entry and cleaning as an undergraduate. I could not have been more pleased to have later been offered a professional position.
I currently have five publications in different areas with different teams, learning a great deal from each project, task, and team members. Two more are under review. I have a variety of research interests centered mostly on global health social determinants of health, with special attention to epidemiology.
I have discovered that I am most fond of teaching, and I look forward to returning to the classroom when I return to Saudi Arabia, wrestling with contemporary issues for new generations, always giving my all to research and laboring to development countermeasures to threats to public health that present themselves. Finally, I like to think of myself in the future as a role model for young Saudi women in search of careers in public health in a new Saudi Arabia where women will have much greater opportunity to compete with their male counterparts with a level playing field. I believe this program will empower me to become an asset to the program as I give my all to these most critical studies. If I could have any position that I wanted in the future, I would select the first female Saudi Minister of Health.
Thank you for considering my application.
MPH Personal Purpose Statement Saudi