Another Deaf Hub Vital Signs has been completed in our book of memories! We invited Dr. Ashina Singh to share her experience as a late-deafened individual navigating through the fields of transplant hepatology and gastroenterology. Her presentation was titled “Overcoming Barriers: Underrepresented Minority Experience in an Ableist Field.”
The Deaf Hub Vital Signs Lecture Series is an annual event that features a BIPOC or female healthcare professional who are deaf or hard of hearing. We invite these professionals to interact with students and share their academic and professional journeys at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) and Rochester School for the Deaf (RSD). The guest presenter shares their experiences, from embarking on their academic journey to obtaining a healthcare degree.
As the curtain falls on this year’s Vital Signs event, Dr. Singh shared her reflections on her experience of her tour at RSD and RIT.
Ashina Singh, MD
Hailing from Maryland, Dr. Singh completed her MD at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in 2010. After finishing her internal medicine residency and gastroenterology fellowship at the University of Cincinnati Academic Health Center, Dr. Singh was accepted as a transplant hepatologist fellow. Now a board-certified transplant hepatologist and gastroenterologist with special interest in clinical informatics, Dr. Singh leverages technology to enhance health care, health education, and promote health equity among learners and patients. Her current interests include women's liver health, particularly liver diseases during pregnancy.
1. Can you share your reflections as a Vital Signs guest presenter?
I have taken back a new energy, enthusiasm and new faces and partners to remember as I came back to my institution.
2. What insights, if any, did you gain from your interactions with RSD and NTID individuals during your visit?
The students at RIT and RSD were so enthusiastic, so engaged, so poised and inquisitive that it left me with a lot of hope for our future. As uncertain as the world can be, I felt after meeting these young people many of my fears were allayed. Their earnest interactions made me feel much calmer about the future of our work. These young people will one day take up the reins from us and lead with conviction and truth.
3. What were your favorite takeaways from the dinner with two students, Elijah “Eli” Strom and Savannah Brown? (Eli and Savannah are part of our Mentor Supported Shadowing Program and both aspire to earn their medical degrees after RIT.)
So wonderful to see how motivated and engaged these students were. I was surprised to hear how they thought they had to be perfect to get into medical schools – when they just have to be their excellent selves! Again, it was heartwarming to be able to meet learners that were genuinely interested and passionate and motivated. It was good for my soul! These are the kinds of folks we need going into medicine.
4. What was the most memorable part of your visit? Why did this moment resonate with you?
One of the custodial staff after the RIT event came up to me – told me he was not deaf or hard of hearing, but he was listening in on parts of the talk. He told me he didn’t catch every single thing I was talking about, but felt the conviction in the talk to take care of people and to make all spaces accessible and equitable. And that he could feel the perseverance from the talk/journey. This was it – I felt I was able to get the argument across to an able-bodied person to understand the importance of more folks like us in this field and how we can profoundly shape the future of healthcare and science.
The moment when some of the students at RSD reacted to the sound of their heartbeats or how they had a reaction from seeing the slides with the endoscopy pictures of stomachs, livers, kidneys was also wonderful to see. It represented to me – opening their minds about the possibilities out there for them.
