Dear reader, 

Welcome to the beginning of many musings! My name is Ojas and I am a rising junior at Rice studying cultural anthropology on the pre-med track with minors in global health technologies and biochemistry and cell biology. I know—that’s a mouthful. The point is that I am a prospective physician with a deep interest in the social elements of medicine. 

Honestly, I did not come to college with any background in global health. But, I was passionate about decolonization and dedicated to cross-cultural exchange. As a child of immigrants from India, a low-income country, I am familiar with many of the structural barriers to accessing care in some resource-constrained settings. But, in humility, I still have so much to learn and am learning every day. 

After discovering Rice360, I felt that I found my home. I found the place to gain unparalleled perspectives on health disparities and collaborate with scholars around the world. 

This past spring, I was fortunate enough to work on a small team addressing Respiratory Distress Syndrome (RDS), which is the leading cause of premature infant death worldwide. Clinicians often use CPAP machines to treat RDS, but high cost and unreliable electricity make oxygen-air blender components of CPAP inaccessible in many parts of Sub-Saharan Africa. Thanks to the mentorship of Dr. Chiamaka Aneji, a brilliant neonatologist with experience in healthcare in Nigeria, I co-developed an affordable, self-powered, and adjustable oxygen-air blender. Our team’s device essentially delivers specific oxygen concentrations to babies to prevent respiratory issues. 

I am not an engineer at heart. This project teased my limits and forced me outside my comfort zone in the best way. Working on this device kindled my desire to address challenges in neonatal care. I am now highly interested in initiatives to reduce infant mortality worldwide. This brings me to the internship I am so grateful to be a part of today. 

In this blog, I will be fondly documenting my work this summer in newborn health. In just a couple days, I will be journeying to the beautiful city of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania where I will be working with Cate Paul, an expert in Tanzanian public health, to research hypothermia in neonates. Hypothermia (body temperature <36.5C according to the WHO) can significantly lower the chances of survival in babies. A common myth is that the majority of hypothermic newborns are born outside the hospital, but in reality, many babies born at the hospital have just as bad or worse rates. Many facilities have adopted this issue as a quality improvement project, but have not seen change.

This summer, my task is to investigate the barriers to reducing hypothermia in newborns at admission. Using my experience in anthropology, I will be carefully crafting an ethnographic methodology for interviewing clinicians. I will be guided by their stories and rich experiences, and I hope this data collection plays a role in ensuring that newborns arrive on the ward warm. 

For now, I am gaining loads of background information on this topic. I’ve been frequenting Houston coffee shops as I read up on neonatal hypothermia discourse. It has been so fascinating, truly. I am reminded of how genuinely fragile babies are, and how crucial it is that we protect them. There are so many intricate steps clinicians must take to make sure a newborn is healthy. I have sincere admiration for both obstetrics teams and neonatal teams and cannot wait to collaborate with them in Dar very soon. 

With gratitude,

Ojas