Professor of Medicine and Obstetrics and Gynecology, David Geffen School of Medicine

Lauren B. Leichtman and Arthur E. Levine Endowed Chair in Women’s Health Research

 

Assistant Professor-in-Residence, David Geffen School of Medicine

  

Researcher, Division of Geriatrics, UCLA Department of Medicine

 

Aishwarya Karlapudi is a medical student, in the Class of 2023, at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Originally from Phoenix, Arizona, she is an alumna of the University of Arizona. Aishwarya first became interested in women’s health after witnessing a loved one navigate the unique health disparities that women face when it comes to post-operative pain perception, assessment, and treatment. After working with Population Connection Action Fund on the Fight4HER campaign for women's reproductive rights for two years, Aishwarya seeks to explore research as another way to contribute to the health and well-being of women in her community. Through the Leichtman-Levine-TEM Summer Mentorship program, Aishwarya hopes to develop skills in project design, big data-set analysis, and critical thinking. She is interested in specialties that involve longitudinal relationships such as OB/GYN and primary care, and she looks forward to this opportunity to learn more about women's health. With mentorship throughout the project, Aishwarya hopes to gain the necessary skills to become the physician, researcher, and advocate she envisions for herself and her community.

 

Rocio grew up in Los Angeles and expressed a strong interest in medicine at a young age. She is motivated to work with underserved communities and is passionate about diversity in healthcare leadership. She is pursuing a Doctor of Medicine degree from Charles R Drew University/UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine. She is expected to graduate from medical school in 2023. Prior to attending medical school, Rocio completed the RAP Program at UCLA DGSOM in 2018. She received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Psychology from California State University Northridge in 2014 and graduated from Grant High School in the San Fernando Valley. In college, Rocio expressed an interest in education and gained teaching experience by partnering with Peer Health Exchange and Keep Youth Doing Something.  While completing her post-baccalaureate program, she worked full-time as a middle school teacher at The Valley Schools in the San Fernando Valley. This experience emphasized her interest in utilizing education to improve the health of underserved communities. From a young age, Rocio demonstrated a passion for the performing arts and continues to attend dance lessons. She is a member of Cheer Los Angeles, a non-profit organization in Culver City that raises funds and resources for LGBTQ+ communities.

 

Sedina Dzodzomenyo is a student in the Class of 2023, originally from Columbus, Ohio. Her interest in women's health stems from questions about the ways in which socially constructed, gendered expectations and behaviors affect providers' communication of health information to their female patients, those patients' understanding of and receptiveness towards that information, and their overall health outcomes. This summer, she is looking forward to learning how to develop a rigorous framework for asking and answering questions relevant to women's health. Additionally, she is excited to gain valuable technical skills in data analysis that will be transferable to future research. She is currently considering specialties with a strong focus on women's health, including urogynecology, OB-GYN, and internal medicine.

 

Yadira Bribiesca is a first year medical student in the UCLA PRIME-LA (MD/Masters) Program.  Yadira’s commitment to medicine stems from her family’s and her personal struggle to access equitable health care in South Los Angeles. As part of the PRIME-LA program, she along with her peers, have partnered up with the Department of Public Health to understand the barriers to exercise for women in SPA 6, and use this information to help implement the Parks Rx Program in LA County.  Mentorship has been pivotal in her journey to medical school and thus Yadira hopes to pay it forward. She is part of the mentorship team with the Latino Medical Student Association. As a DACA recipient and first-generation college student, Yadira aspires to use her dual degree to engage in policy change and conduct research in underserved communities to fervently fight against health inequities. She is looking forward to gaining skills in statistically analyzing and manipulating big data sets in hopes of finding correlates that can potentially affect positive change in underserved women’s health.

 

Karen Bryan is originally from the Bay Area, California. Karen was drawn to this focused research and mentorship program because she is passionate about women’s healthcare and is excited to explore those interests further through research and clinical exposure. She was lucky to grow up surrounded by strong female role models like her mother and grandmother, who instilled in her a value for advocating for women. Karen is interested in pursuing a career in OBGyn or Internal Medicine, and she looks forward to this opportunity to delve deeper into important topics in women’s health. She hopes to gain valuable research experience which will aid in her future practice to help her better understand the pressing issues facing women’s health today and how to address them as a clinician.

 

Aloukika is originally from Northern California. Aloukika’s interest in women’s health was piqued after witnessing a loved one’s challenging experience though the menopausal transition. Understanding how truly unique women’s healthcare must be in order to meet the multidimensional needs of women, makes this a patient population she hopes to one day serve. Prior to medical school, Aloukika served as an AmeriCorps Health Fellow at a federally qualified health center where she witnessed the pervasive role of nutrition among many other lifestyle components underlying chronic disease. Her experience managing her clinic’s wellness center and leading classes in cooking and chronic disease management inspires her to pursue a career with longitudinal care of patients such as internal medicine. Aloukika looks forward to this targeted research mentorship as a valuable opportunity to build a foundation for both clinical research and critical thinking, two skills that she will continue to develop through her medical training and beyond.