By Shannon Turgeon
Photography by Rayni Shiring, University of Pittsburgh
Maheen Ibrahimi, a third-year student at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, was determined to make a change upon her arrival to the city.
She started working in community health as an undergraduate in Baltimore, Maryland, after witnessing the barriers that her family experienced while trying to obtain health care and afford basic needs.
When she moved to Pittsburgh, she became involved in community service activities and noticed a gap in resources and access to health care for certain populations—and she began working to fix it.
Her efforts over the past few years have led her to be selected as a 2025 recipient of the Herbert W. Nickens Medical Student Scholarship from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC).
These awards consist of five scholarships given to outstanding students entering their third year of medical school who have shown leadership in efforts to promote equal opportunity in medical education and access to quality health care. They also should have demonstrated initiative in addressing educational, societal and health care needs for underserved populations in the United States.
Ibrahimi’s work is based around sustainability, inclusion and community involvement.
She has developed an evolving database to connect people to local resources, ranging from food banks to mental health support, and worked with Muslim community members to create a clinical guide that helps medical providers deliver faith-sensitive care.
“The guide is an infographic that providers can use when they have a Muslim patient coming in and are wondering, ‘What should I be careful of? Are they fasting for Ramadan, or is it a prayer time? What are medications that they can't have?’” said Ibrahimi.
In addition, Ibrahimi coled a health education curriculum in Homewood through Pitt School of Medicine’s Social Medicine Fellowship.
“The Social Medicine Fellowship program has been a space where I've been able to merge the classroom learning that I do with the community-based practice in a meaningful way. I was able to directly communicate with community leaders in Homewood and see what needs weren't being met and then collaborate to create a health education program for kids,” she said.
She is also involved in the School of Medicine’s Women’s Center Clinic Interest Group and Refugee Health Advocacy Project.
“I think the School of Medicine gave me the platform to launch and expand my ideas, whether it's through funding opportunities, research support or mentorship,” she said.
Ibrahimi is only the second Pitt School of Medicine student to receive a Nickens scholarship.
When she found out she had been selected, “It felt like a full circle moment, from being a child of immigrants who experienced these barriers, to now being acknowledged for working to dismantle them,” said Ibrahimi.
“It was just a really nice reminder that the work matters.”
She will travel to Learn Serve Lead 2025: The AAMC Annual Meeting in San Antonio, Texas, in November to accept the award. While there, she will have the opportunity to connect with other students and medical educators who are working to transform health care for underserved populations.
Moving forward, Ibrahimi is planning to expand her efforts to reach community members in need. In addition to sustaining her current projects, she is in the process of developing community health fairs to share resources with a wider audience and has recently been exploring health equity in surgical care.
“I’m grateful to the communities that trusted me with their stories, welcomed me into their lives and guided the work I did with their experiences,” she said.