Vruksha Upadhyay

UConn School of Medicine, Class of 2020

I was born and raised in the small village of Vaso, India until 2000 when I moved to Connecticut. I attended UConn for my undergraduate and majored in Molecular and Cell Biology.

My first experience with inner city communities came as a volunteer researcher for Connecticut Children’s Medical Center. While researching the prevalence of violence and obesity rates in Hartford, I became interested in the striking differences between suburban and urban communities. Numerous urban families complained about inadequate produce stores, while others were surprised at the amount of sugar in fruit juice. I came to realize there existed a lack of nutritional education and accessibility for inner city families. I continue to work with urban demographics as a medical scribe at a Danbury. There, I learn about adult medicine and lack of healthcare coverage, especially among Hispanic people.

As someone who was raised in a low socioeconomic home, I feel pulled towards helping overcome the multifactorial challenges faced by citizens of lower socioeconomic classes. I am driven to join the Urban Service Track not only to help urban communities, but also to better understand the complex admixture of groups living in them. I hope to learn about the language barriers and strenuous work schedules of migrant farm workers or the inadequate education and unaffordable healthcare hindering inner city kids. I hope one day to work in urban hospitals and free clinics around the United States, while also doing international work with Doctors Without Borders.