Ritu Meda

Quinnipiac Physician Assistant Program, Class of 2018

I was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and received my Bachelor of Science in Psychology with a minor in Sociology from Georgia State University in 2007.

I have worked as an undergraduate research assistant at the IDEA Lab and the Social Neuroscience Lab at Georgia State University, and as a research assistant at the SENSE Lab at Vanderbilt University. My most extensive health care experience, however, has been with the Olin Neuropsychiatry Research Center, where I was a research assistant at its COBBRA Lab from 2007 until 2010, and from 2012 until the present. My experience in health care granted me extensive knowledge of medical techniques and allowed me to interact with a wide variety of patients and fellow professionals.

I chose the path of medicine in order to give back to the community as best I could. Specifically, I would like to use the skills I have developed in health care to help those underserved communities and community members least able to access health care now. As well as access, I want to prioritize improving health literacy in order to empower patients to improve their health outside the clinic. I believe the Urban Service Track is the ideal program to help me achieve my goals as a Physician Assistant. As well as my personal goals, I believe in the improved efficacy of team-orientated healthcare. Because each health care profession is necessarily limited in isolation, a social worker or a dentist could keep the continuity of care for underserved patients that my training prevents.