Public Health and Epidemiology: My Story

Meet Dr. Aida Asmelash, the Clinical Research Site Leader and Research Associate at the Botswana Harvard Aids Institute. She is an experienced clinical researcher, with exposure to HIV/AIDS Research and several publications on the same. She is also the Network Program Leader for the AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG). This is our interview with this global leader.

Question: Tell me about why you wanted to be a doctor and how you got into public health.
Aida: I have always had a great passion for helping others. Since I was a young girl, maybe 10 years old, I knew that I wanted to be either a nurse or a doctor. I completed high school and got a scholarship to study medicine. After medical school, I was posted in rural Ethiopia where I worked for about a year before proceeding to Europe for postgraduate studies in public health and epidemiology.

Medical Research: My passion

Medicine is defined as a “calling” or the noblest profession, mostly because it involves service of others at their weakest. Doctor Refilwe Mothibamele tells us how her pursuit of a medical career led her to HIV-AIDS Research and what makes it an engaging occupation.

Question: Tell me about your training as a medical doctor.
Refilwe: I did my first year, what we call common year, at the University of Botswana, then proceeded to Kwa Zulu Natal, Durban for Bachelor of Medicine in Surgery for 5 years.