Usman Hasnie knows well the importance of clean and adequate water supplies. As a high school student, he saw it first-hand while serving in Pakistan as a volunteer with SOS Children’s Village, an organization that provides care and resources to abandoned, destitute and orphaned children.
Hasnie is also from Flint, Michigan, and watched as a water crisis has thrown that community into a state of chaos for the past three years.
The images of both have prompted Hasnie to seek ways to make a difference. His latest effort will be as a member of the American Medical Association Medical Student Section Committee on Global and Public Health. He was selected to be part of the committee at the AMA national meeting in June.
“The issue of water sanitation is something that is very personal to me,” Hasnie said. “It’s a global issue that I hope to tackle and the AMA is giving me the opportunity to do that with other students around the country.”
Hasnie joined the AMA’s student section two years ago.
“The American Medical Association was an opportunity to advocate for my patients and to be part of the nation’s largest and most influential physician organization striving to increase access to healthcare for everyone,” he said.
Last year, Hasnie served on the student section’s committee on Long Range Planning. Now, he will serve a one-year term with 13 other medical students from across the country working to educate the AMA on public health topics and to organize public health initiatives.
Some of the agenda items for the year are providing educational programming at the AMA interim and annual conferences, and creating a campaign for National Public Health Week in April 2018.
At the same time, Hasnie hasn’t forgotten the people of Flint or the children in Pakistan. He said he plans to focus some of his committee’s attention on the Flint Water Crisis, firearm violence and water sanitation.
