Sezin Sakmar

Sezin Sakmar recently graduated from the George Washington University with a major in anthropology and a minor in public health.  During her undergraduate career, Sezin spent over 3,000 hours in various clinical settings ranging from working as an EMT and as an ED technician at a Level 1 trauma hospital to being a medical assistant at a pediatric clinic.  Through these experiences, she fell in love with medicine but noticed the ways in which the American healthcare system was beset by serious infrastructural issues which led to health inequities in the case of minority communities.  When studying in India through the School for International Training, Sezin conducted fieldwork with the Comprehensive Rural Health Project in rural Maharashtra, which helped her to realize her dream of becoming an OBGYN and providing empowerment-driven healthcare to communities around the world.  During her final year of university, she also conducted independent research on racially concordant care among Washington, DC’s Black birthing population.  

Sezin’s Fulbright-Nehru research project is bringing together the fields of public health and critical medical anthropology to make a positive impact on communities seeking family planning care.  Her project is partnering with the All India Institute of Medical Sciences and the Comprehensive Rural Health Project to analyze empowerment-driven healthcare in rural communities.  Through this research, Sezin is seeking to understand the particular ways in which healthcare providers are trained to deliver family planning services