🎓Prepared for Partnership: Recent UCLA Graduate Joins a Decade-Long Global Health Collaboration

Shadowing a mobile health unit in rural Karnataka and spending time with an infant seen during the clinic.
By Global Health Program
2 min read

As recent UCLA graduate Sameera Gurram prepares for a gap year before medical school, she is looking forward to joining the SISHU (Standardizing Infant Screening and Health for the Underserved) initiative at Vivekananda Memorial Hospital (VMH) in rural India, joining a  decade-long collaboration that brings together quality improvement, neonatal health, and equitable global partnerships.

For Sameera, the opportunity represents a natural extension of her undergraduate education. Through her global health coursework as a student at UCLA and her work with the THINQ Collaborative at UCLA Health, she developed interests in both global health and quality improvement, learning how healthcare systems can identify gaps in care and implement practical, patient-centered solutions.

"My global health education showed me how significantly health needs, resources, and care delivery vary across communities," she says. "At the same time, my work with the THINQ Collaborative taught me how quality improvement can identify gaps in health systems and lead to practical, patient-centered solutions."

As part of the SISHU initiative, Sameera will contribute to the development of a parent-administered developmental screening tool designed to support the early identification of developmental delays. She is particularly excited to learn how clinicians at VMH adapt evidence-based neonatal and developmental care to the realities of rural practice, and how factors such as health literacy, cultural context, available resources, and access to follow-up care influence whether an intervention is successful.

"My global health classes at UCLA made me reflect on what it means to pursue global health ethically," she explains. "I learned that improving health outcomes involves more than introducing a well-intentioned intervention. It requires understanding the social, structural, and cultural factors that shape care in different settings."

Those lessons have shaped how she approaches the upcoming experience. Rather than viewing communities as recipients of care, Sameera hopes to learn alongside clinicians and families at VMH, understanding how sustainable healthcare improvements are designed in partnership with the people they are intended to serve.

Looking ahead to medical school and a future career as a physician, Sameera hopes the experience will reinforce her commitment to combining clinical medicine with health systems improvement. "I want to make healthcare more accessible, equitable, and responsive to patients' needs," she says. "Learning from colleagues at VMH will broaden my perspective on how resourceful, community-driven solutions can improve health outcomes, and I hope those lessons will influence how I approach both local and global health throughout my career."

For Sameera, the SISHU initiative represents more than an international experience. It is an opportunity to put into practice the values emphasized in her global health education at UCLA: humility, collaboration, and a belief that meaningful improvements in health are achieved by working alongside communities to create solutions that are sustainable, equitable, and locally driven.