ACHIEVING EQUITY IN ACCESS TO NEUROSURGICAL CARE
Growing up in a big family in London, UK, Katya Marks was surrounded by siblings with a full range of ambitions, from drama to graphic design. As someone with diverse interests herself, it was not until her late schooling that she decided to go into medicine, but she never looked back.
Her aptitude in science helped get her into Oxford University for medical school. Her interest in the brain and in working with her hands steered her toward specializing in neurosurgery.
“I look to the Bloomberg School’s MPH program as an unparalleled opportunity to develop breadth and sophistication of understanding, skill, and experience, preparing me to tackle pressing public health problems.”
When Marks was in her third year at Oxford she heard about the International Student Surgical Network, or InciSioN. The nonprofit, which is composed of medical students and trainees in chapters throughout the world, focuses on global surgery, a field aimed at strengthening surgical systems to meet the huge global unmet need for surgical care.
“Global surgery isn’t really talked about in medical school,” she says.
As she finished her medical degree over the past three years, she served as the communication lead for InciSioN UK, then the chair, and is now a member of the board of trustees. She is currently working with InciSioN colleagues to develop an educational module on global surgery for international distribution. Looking forward, she plans to work on developing and promoting better systems for Traumatic Brain Injury response in areas where too few patients receive treatment within the recommended “critical window” of four hours after neurotrauma occurs.
Marks plans to integrate this work into her training at the Bloomberg School and to refine skills that will be pivotal for future research, such as biostatistics and programming.
“No one should suffer avoidable, devastating neurological injury because of where they’re from,” she says.
