By Carol Kerbaugh
Bharath Ram MPA/ID 2024 wants to use his degrees in medicine and international development to reduce global health disparities in an affordable and sustainable way.
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Bharath Ram MPA/ID 2024 will graduate from the Master in Public Administration in International Development (MPA/ID) Program at Harvard Kennedy School this month. A native of San Antonio, Texas, Ram has been studying medicine concurrently and will graduate from the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston next year.
Before coming to HKS, Ram was a research intern at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., where he focused on global health policy. Previously, he worked in Peru to improve children’s access to nutrition and was involved in social justice initiatives, including those led by Physicians for Human Rights.
For more than 20 years, Ram has practiced Bharatanatyam, a classical Indian dance form that expresses South Indian religious themes and stories. Over the years, he has held dance performances to raise money for social causes, including a refugee clinic in San Antonio.
Ahead of graduation, Ram reflected on his two years at HKS and what he will take with him.
What was your driving factor for coming to HKS? What were you hoping to get out of this experience?
I read an article in a medical journal a few years ago detailing how people who give birth near oil rigs are at higher risk of peripartum [the period shortly before, during, and immediately after giving birth] complications. It dawned on me that as a medical student, I would only learn about the clinical solutions to treat patients who suffered from these complications, but not the infrastructural, sociopolitical, and economic factors that influenced their health.
This became even more salient in medical school. I had patients on my rotations who had housing or insurance problems or problems accessing food. I started thinking about how to enact change in a more systemic way. That’s when I discovered the MPA/ID Program. I wanted to gain a broader understanding of the systems and policies that influence how people can access equitable and quality health care in an affordable and sustainable way.
You came to HKS as a concurrent medical school student. How did you see your interests in medicine and international development aligning and how did you explore this at HKS?
There’s a critical connection between health care and international development. For example, if people live in a thriving economy where they can secure employment, they can better afford the health care they need.
Throughout my time at HKS, I tied my assignments and projects back to health care. My Second Year Policy Analysis—essentially the MPA/ID Program’s thesis—explored opportunities for low-income countries to build resilience against natural disasters in their health supply chains. For other coursework, I wrote essays about policy failures leading to health disparities in Native American communities and how health care facilities are increasingly becoming part of the dynamic of war. I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to cross-register across Harvard, taking courses at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Harvard Law School to explore humanitarian aid and compare health systems around the world.
“There’s a critical connection between health care and international development. For example, if people live in a thriving economy where they can secure employment, they can better afford the health care they need.”
Who or what made an impression on you during your time at HKS?
My summer internship was fascinating. I interned in Nairobi, Kenya, with the University of Nairobi-U.S. Agency for International Development’s Fahari ya Jamii Project. I was on its health systems strengthening team, looking at ways to improve access to—and quality of—care for people living with HIV in Kenya.
It was my first time in Sub-Saharan Africa and I had never worked in a government health system. It was interesting to see how a public health system works and get on-the-ground experience seeing how people access care, how they access clean water or sanitation, or how they report gender-based violence.
In addition to my internship, there were two courses at HKS that made a significant impact on me: MLD-201: Exercising Leadership: The Politics of Change and MLD-202: Leadership from the Inside Out: The Capacity to Lead and Stay Alive–Self, Identity, and Freedom. They were particularly formative because I didn’t just learn about leadership; I learned about leadership through a personalized lens.
What surprised you during your time at HKS?
I’ve been surprised by how appreciative I’ve grown to be of HKS’s incredibly diverse population. There are people here from around the world who have an incredibly diverse array of interest areas.
It’s certainly different from my medical school experience, where everyone is so focused on health care. Even for me, I’ve been involved in the health care field for so long—I went to a health-focused high school, I went to college and studied biology and biomedical engineering, and now medical school. I’ve always been around people interested in health and medicine.
But attending policy school, where my peers are passionate about so many fields, has been refreshing. It’s been eye-opening to talk to my classmates and learn about their experiences, their visions of the future, and how their work will get them there. I’ve met people who were revolutionaries in their countries. I’ve met people who invented technologies we use every day. I’ve met people who were leaders of their country’s or state’s education systems.
It's been a valuable experience that has made me appreciate my time at HKS.
How do you plan to apply your HKS degree?
My HKS experience has given me a much broader understanding of how health care plays out in the world.
I have one more year of medical school at Baylor and then residency. After that, I plan to work as a clinician, but my ultimate goal is to contribute to health policy, health systems development, or global health.
As I finish medical school and enter residency, I hope to apply what I’ve learned at HKS to my patient interactions. I’ve learned frameworks of how to evaluate a program, think through solutions, and consider different stakeholders. Those are lessons I can take with me as I navigate my final year of medical school, into residency and practice, and eventually as a development practitioner.
“I believe everyone deserves equitable access to quality health care—and policy is the ideal tool to create lasting change. As a doctor, I can help one patient at a time; as a policymaker, I can help a population of people for the next 50 years.”
Why is public service important to you?
I grew up in San Antonio, Texas, and had a pretty privileged middle-class upbringing. I didn’t really understand the disparities and inequities in health care access until I was in high school when I learned about the Tuskegee experiment and I traveled to India to visit family and witnessed global health disparities. I was shocked that these preventable or addressable inequities continue to happen in my community and in communities around me. This awakening drove me to be more invested in social justice and public service.
I believe everyone deserves equitable access to quality health care—and policy is the ideal tool to create lasting change. As a doctor, I can help one patient at a time; as a policymaker, I can help a population of people for the next 50 years. That’s what drove my decision to attend HKS, not the business school or public health school. That’s what is driving me to enter public service.
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Portraits by Lydia Rosenberg
