Health Through Prevention
As a medical student, Mogessie was struck by the hardships faced by women and youth in Ethiopia, from early marriage and unintended pregnancies to lack of awareness and access to youth-friendly reproductive health services.
He soon learned that health prevention was secondary to intervention in some communities, particularly for reproductive health. He remembers one patient he treated who nearly died trying to commit suicide after discovering an unintended pregnancy.
“Most global health challenges are not solved by only one discipline. To tackle the rampant health disparities across the globe, I chose a dual degree to … develop my critical thinking and leadership skills.”
“She was not aware of access to contraceptive services,” Mogessie says. “It almost killed her.”
To help avert such tragedies on a global level and educate young people about preventive health care in general, he’s worked with several government agencies and NGOs to train over 20,000 youth on health issues, including sexual and reproductive health, using a human-centered design approach.
More recently, Mogessie served as a front-line ICU physician in a COVID-19 treatment center in Ethiopia, an experience that highlighted the extreme challenges of saving lives with limited resources.
“Most global health challenges are not solved by only one discipline,” says Mogessie, who is focusing on health care management and research skills in the MPH/MBA program. “To tackle the rampant health disparities across the globe, I chose a dual degree to … develop my critical thinking and leadership skills.”
