OMSA Student of the Season for Summer 2018 - Anish Naidu
Meet Anish Naidu (University of Western Ontario), our Student of the Season for Summer 2018!
Anish is heavily involved in several extracurricular activities including partaking in student governments and grassroots advocacy, leading interest groups, helping organize orientation week, managing OMSA and Schulich student websites, participating in Tachycardia Annual Fundraising Musical, and working with administration on curricular redesign. Despite all of these responsibilities, he performs really well academically, and is involved in various research projects as well. However, no matter how busy he is, he finds the time to help others, whether they need assistance with coursework, or just a listening ear for their troubles.
Anish has taken several initiatives that benefit the entire class with no desire for recognition. He created a Deadlines Calendar to help us keep track of the multitude of tests and assignments in preclerkship. During clerkship, he worked with administration to provide remote EMR access to all medical students so that we can review dictations and read up on patients at home. He is also worked with the CFMS and medskl.com to organize a free question-bank for students across Canada for LMCC exam preparation. His classmates regard him as their point of contact for practically any questions they have, and he is also their go-to for any IT trouble, in class or at home.
Anish is also quite active in the community outside the medical school through volunteering with Let's Talk Science (LTS), and leading the Western Stem Cell Club (WSCC).
LTS is an award-winning, national organization focused on youth education and outreach. Anish has invested countless hours organizing and running various LTS events in London since his first year in medical school. He strongly believes that teaching science to the youth will help them tremendously in the long run, and may also motivate them to pursue rewarding careers in science. The youth have a phenomenal time working with him, and they leave with a greater appreciation for science. For his dedication to LTS, he was awarded Volunteer of the Month for December 2015 - January 2016.
WSCC is a chapter of the national Stem Cell Club that organizes swabbing drives in London to increase Canada's stem cell donor pool. After a year as junior executive, Anish rose to become the club president. Under his leadership, the club received official ratification from the University, something that the club struggled to obtain for 3 years. He led the club to recruit over 500 donors to the registry, and he expanded the member base of the club from 20 to over 40. He also developed new promotional materials for the club to use in the future, such as posters, banners and pamphlets.
Anish's selflessness and dedication has really moved several of his classmates, and many of them aspire to be like him. He truly deserves recognition for the countless hours he has invested into serving others.