BY BETELHEM BEDLU
Misker Kassahun, 27, is a general practitioner. She was born in Harar; but raised in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. She is passionate about healthcare leadership, youth empowerment, mental health advocacy and self-development.
Her community engagement started at her young age through organizing fundraising events while she was an elementary and a high school student. Her commitment continued even in medical school by undertaking several fundraising fashion shows, and providing free medical screening service for different local charity organizations.
Misker is also a professional model. She has represented Ethiopia in different internationally renowned pageants such as Miss Supranational 2016 in Poland, Miss Universe Ethiopia 2017 and Miss Africa Beauty Queen 2018 in Nigeria.
The Ethiopian Herald had a short stay with Misker Kassahun (MD) where she shared her life and career experience, challenges as well as her accomplishments. Enjoy your reading!
Can you walk us through your education background and career journey?
I graduated from St. Paul’s Hospital Millennium Medical College in September 2020 as a medical doctor. Soon after graduation, my first engagement was in the Ministry of Health as a Healthcare Leadership Intern.
During my 8 months stay, I was able to learn from different departments and senior advisors regarding the management of healthcare and grasp knowledge about the Ethiopian Healthcare System in general. When my internship ended, I started volunteering in the Ethiopian Medical Association as a Communication Officer and then went on to join the association as a full time employee.
I then had the opportunity to travel to the USA for the Mandela Washington Fellowship where I was given training in Leadership in Community Engagement. Besides the full and part time work opportunities, I co-founded a local non-profit organization, called GIV Society Ethiopia, three months after I left medical school. GIV Society Ethiopia was locally registered under the Authority for Civil Society Organization (ACSO) on January 14, 2021.
I have been serving as an Executive Director for the past 27 months; and we have been working with the community all over Addis Ababa. Our organization has a mission of tackling social challenges via volunteerism. Our focus for the first 5 years of the organization is health provision and health education. Towards this end, we have been carrying out different projects and events that target the underprivileged members of the community.
Our most notable activity is our monthly medical campaign where we bring volunteer health professionals to provide free medical treatment to women, children and elderly. Our comprehensive medical service has reached more than 3000 people in Addis Ababa in 9 sub-cities.
We have engaged more than 800 volunteers in 16 events to give dental, ophthalmologic, HIV screening and family planning services to name a few. We work with hospitals, diagnostic centers and clinics to provide laboratory services and medications on our campaigns. The campaigns also link patients to referral hospitals where some patients have been able to receive surgery and life altering treatments.
What were the toughest challenges that you encountered in medical school, and what did you learn from it?
The challenge in medical school is many including the tough course work, lack of adequate social support; and time for self-care. Personally, I was challenged as medicine was not my first choice of study. I was interested in engineering, astronomy and physics. The sudden change of path was a burden for me for the first two years of medical school.
Having to adjust to a new type of educational system in addition to the bulkiness of the courses as well as balancing my studies with my extracurricular activities were the other challenges that I had faced.
As I mentioned earlier, I had started representing Ethiopia since my third year of medical school on international beauty contests. This was an opportunity for me to promote my culture, inspire youths on the ability to pursue academics and extracurricular activity and promote important topics such as mental health. So, balancing medical school and modeling was a bit tricky.
Throughout my experience, the important lesson that I learnt is that I can change challenges into opportunities. Apart from the lessons I gathered like being flexible and strong despite challenges, I have come to understand a lot about social support. While in medical school, my family, friends, classmates, and the St. Paul’s Hospital community were very supportive of all my extracurricular and community-based activities. I learned that asking for help and being open to receiving it is important.
We have learned that you have won the 2018 Miss Africa Beauty Queen. What can you tell us about that experience?
The experience of winning Miss Africa Beauty Queen 2018 was very exciting. It was a great honor to represent Ethiopia in an international stage with other African countries though the competition was challenging. We had to stay in pageant camp for 2 weeks where we had a series of competitions such as fashion show run away, talent showcase, cultural shows, project pitching and so forth. I had to use creative ways to promote the beautiful and diverse Ethiopian culture through my outfits, storytelling, mannerism and attitude.
The experience was also fulfilling as I got to learn from the other women about their countries. During my time, I learned the strong bond we Africans hold with each other and the wisdom that is found in each country.
How did you move forward when women are mostly valued with their appearance/looks rather than with their thoughts?
I think it is a bit of misconception that women are only judged by their appearance in pageants. Although appearance takes a good portion of pageantry, it is also equally important to acquire good qualities in communication, fashion industry knowledge, brand promotion and self-discipline. There are many women in the modeling, pageantry and fashion sector who are also doctors, engineers, health advocates, business owners, educators, and leaders.
For me, my biggest aim in being involved in modeling was to show the world and youth that you can excel in many different areas. I wanted to show the holistic approach we should take to life rather than sticking only to academia or art. So, how I moved forward was by having clear intention; and by promoting this ideal that you can do it all, what’s typically called “Beauty and Brains.”
Is there any area (medical world) that you are currently engaged in? If yes, share your experience on that?
Currently, I do not practice clinical medicine, but I am very much engaged in public health and healthcare leadership. Through my work in GIV Society Ethiopia, I am engaged in healthcare management, mental health advocacy and health equity. Besides that, in my current full-time job, I work as a project coordinator for Prana Events which is one of the biggest event management companies in Ethiopia.
As a coordinator in the Life-Science department, I am engaged in organizing the biggest healthcare exhibition and multidisciplinary Continuing professional development (CPD) conference in East Africa titled “Ethio Health Exhibition & Congress.” So even though I am not directly working in clinical medicine, I am very much engaged in healthcare.
What do you think has contributed to your success?
I believe my strong desire to learn has contributed to my success. I am very passionate about growth, development, and gaining new experiences. Because of this, I do not shy away from trying new things and taking risks. I am open to learning and flexible to change. I am willing to fail and learn from my mistakes which helped me to find myself, my unique abilities and improve my weakness.
What is your biggest accomplishment over the years?
My biggest accomplishment is the work I have done through GIV Society Ethiopia. Although my organization is small and operating with almost zero budgets, it has done impressive work in the community. I am proud to have a team that is highly committed to serving the underprivileged community with their time, skill, and network.
We have reached thousands in healthcare provision, health education, and advocacy work. I am even more proud that we can implement our philosophy where we say: ‘you do not need money to make an impact.’ Although funding is critical, in the past two years, we have proven that in-kind donations can be effectively utilized. We also have shown that volunteers are the most significant resources to serve the community and bring impact.
What piece of advice would you like to give to our readers?
To anyone reading my personal and career journey, I would advise seeking growth and improvement. If we all change to become better community members, we can then change our community, countries, and the world for the better.
For youths, I would like to advise them to be engaged in community work through volunteers. Volunteerism is the perfect place to help others while gaining skills and network.
The Ethiopian Herald April 13/2023
