August 2026: South Asian Heritage Month
August 2026: South Asian Heritage Month
From our APAMSA family to you: Happy South Asian Heritage Month! ✨ Join us throughout August as we celebrate the richness, diversity, and resilience of South Asian communities while highlighting the intersections of culture, identity, health, and medicine.
Throughout the month, we’ll be sharing our South Asian Health Series, beginning with an introductory post followed by educational videos exploring health issues that disproportionately affect South Asian communities. Topics will include type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and mental health, with a focus on the cultural, biological, and systemic nuances that shape these conversations.
These posts are designed to make important health information accessible to future physicians, healthcare professionals, and members of the broader community. Our goal is to encourage more informed, culturally responsive care and stronger advocacy for South Asian patients.
We’re also excited to feature Mindful Desi Drinks, a special social media series celebrating culturally inspired beverages while encouraging moments of mindfulness, reflection, and wellness. Be sure to follow along and share your favorites!
On August 24, join us for our featured Spotlight Event with Dr. Rupa Juthani, a board-certified neurosurgeon, physician educator, and prominent medical content creator. Dr. Juthani will share her experiences as a South Asian woman in medicine, discuss representation and identity within a demanding surgical specialty, and reflect on how she uses social media to educate, advocate, and inspire future physicians. We will also announce the winner of our South Asian Heritage Month Spotlight during the event.
We’re also launching a Research Grant Proposal Contest focused on South Asian health disparities. Participants are invited to submit innovative research proposals addressing health inequities affecting South Asian communities. Selected proposals will receive recognition and may be eligible for support through APAMSA.
Finally, show us your creativity through our South Asian Heritage Month Merch Design Contest! Submit an original design celebrating South Asian culture, identity, health, or representation in medicine. The winning artist will receive an APAMSA merchandise item!
Follow along throughout the month for event details, submission guidelines, deadlines, educational content, and opportunities to celebrate South Asian excellence in medicine and beyond. 💛
August 1, 2026
Celebrate South Asian Heritage Month by designing the next piece of official APAMSA merch! Submit your original artwork for a chance to be featured on our storefront and win a product featuring your own design! Browse our current collection for inspiration: apamsa-shop.fourthwall.com
Open to Everyone!
Deadline: August 10th 11:59 PM!
August 4, 2026
🌟 South Asian Heritage Health Research Grant — Apply Today!
Are you passionate about improving health outcomes & understanding health experiences in South Asian communities? We want to support your work! 💛
This grant is open to researchers, students, and community health advocates exploring topics like chronic disease, mental health, cultural health practices, healthcare access, and beyond. One winner will receive $100 to help bring their project to life! 🎉
📋 Fill out our short application and take the next step in advancing health equity and well-being for South Asian communities.
⏰ Deadline: August 20, 2026
🏆 Winner announced at our Speaker Event: August 24, 2026
🔗 tinyurl.com/APAMSASouthAsianResearchGrant
📩 Questions? Reach out to sadirector@apamsa.org
August 24, 2026
Join us for an inspiring conversation with Dr. Rupa Juthani, MD, FAANS, a board-certified and fellowship-trained neurosurgeon specializing in neurooncolology about her journey through medicine as a south asian woman. Beyond the operating room, Dr. Juthani is a physician educator, TEDx speaker, mother, and prominent medical content creator known online as @braintumorsurgeon.
Disparities in South Asian Health Video Series
South Asian Mindful Drink Recipes
Lassi’s been around for about 5,000 years. It didn’t need a rebrand, a trend cycle, or a big marketing push — it just kept existing, through Mughal rule, Afghan rule, British colonialism, all of it. No one ever tried to commercialize it because there was nothing to profit from. It just stayed what it was: a drink people made at home, for each other.
Sweet with cardamom and rose water, or salty with cumin and black salt. Both are correct. Fight me.
Chai has a rougher history than people realize. The British cleared land and built plantations across Assam and Darjeeling to supply tea back home, using indentured and displaced labor to do it. Indians weren’t even the intended market. Chai only became “chai” once street vendors took the low-grade leaf they were handed and added milk, sugar, and their own spices to it.
So when you drink chai, you’re kind of drinking an act of resistance, disguised as a comfort drink.
This one’s not like the others. It’s pink, it’s salty, and it comes from Central Asian trade routes rather than the usual chai lineage, it’s genuinely closer to Tibetan butter tea than to masala chai.
In Kashmir, it shows up at weddings, funerals, and as the first thing you offer a guest. It’s outlasted the Mughals, the Sikh empire, the Dogras, and the British, mostly because no outside power ever cared enough to try to change it.
Turmeric milk carries about 3,000 years of Ayurvedic tradition, used for everything from inflammation to wound care long before Western medicine took any interest in it. During the colonial period it was often dismissed outright, only to resurface decades later in the West as a wellness trend.
So next time you see “”golden milk”” on a café menu, know the tradition goes back a lot further than the trend.
Jadyn Hyun, Midwest Regional Conference Committee Member
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Jadyn Hyun is a second-year medical student at the Kansas City University College of Osteopathic Medicine. She was born in Manchester, United Kingdom and grew up between Seoul, South Korea and Lawrenceville, Georgia. She completed her B.S. in Health Sciences at Boston University and her M.S.c in Immunology of Infectious Diseases from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and conducted a research project on tuberculosis in The Gambia as part of her M.S.c. She worked as a medical assistant at an Emory primary care clinic in Georgia for 2 years. In addition, she is the vice president of the APAMSA chapter at KCU and part of the programming committee for the APAMSA Midwest Conference. Outside of medicine, she is a huge animal lover and loves to travel. After medical school, she aims to pursue the field of infectious diseases and global health in order to improve health equity, locally and globally.
Vaidehi Bhavaraju, Midwest Regional Conference Committee Member
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Vaidehi Bhavaraju is a second year MD-PhD student at the University of Kansas School of Medicine (KUSOM) in Kansas City. She is originally from San Diego, CA, and completed her B.S. in Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience at the University of California, San Diego. She serves as the Co-Cultural chair for KUSOM’s chapter of APAMSA. She is interested in women’s health and neuroscience and hopes to integrate cultural inclusivity and awareness into her future practice.
Kassandra Wu, Midwest Regional Conference Committee Member
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Kassandra Wu is a second-year medical student from Overland Park, Kansas. From Kansas, she went on to study Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Boston University. She worked as a medical assistant in Boston before returning to Kansas for medical school. She hopes to go into a surgical specialty in the future.
Monica Marni, Midwest Regional Conference Committee Member
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Monica Marni, BS is currently a second-year medical student at the University of Kansas School of Medicine in Kansas City. She completed her B.S. in Microbiology at the University of Kansas and then received a certificate in Pharmacovigilance from Loyola University of Chicago Stritch School of Medicine. As an undergraduate, she served as the Multicultural Chair and then External Vice President of the Asian American Student Union. Currently she serves as a local Co-Cultural Chair of her Asian Pacific American Medical Student Association (APAMSA) chapter.
Kayla Nguyen, Midwest Regional Conference Committee Member
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Kayla Nguyen is a medical student at KUMC. She attended the University of Notre Dame for her undergraduate education and is very passionate about her involvement in Compassionate Care in Medicine and Science and Patient Advocacy. In her free time, she loves to bake, try new foods, and drink matcha.
Nhu Do, Midwest Regional Conference Committee Member
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Nhu Do is a second year medical student at the University of Kansas School of Medicine. She was born in Ho Chi Minh City and immigrated to Kansas when she was 10 years old. Since then, she completed her bachelor’s degrees in Chemistry and Biology at University of Missouri–Kansas City.
Seeking a stronger AANHPI community, she revived the Vietnamese Student Association at her alma mater and joined Asian Pacific American Medical Student Association as an M1. APAMSA has given her a strong sense of community and mentorship throughout her first year of medical school, and she hopes to continue fostering that within her local chapter and the Kansas City community. She currently serves as Co-President of her local chapter and is excited to help host Kansas City’s first APAMSA regional conference. Through advocacy, outreach, and mentorship initiatives, she hopes to continue expanding APAMSA both locally and nationally.
She is passionate about raising awareness of health disparities affecting Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander communities through community initiatives, conferences, and preventive health education. Her interests include community medicine, advocacy, and gastroenterology, and she hopes to promote greater awareness of preventive health screening in underserved populations.
Outside of medicine, she enjoys exploring new restaurants and coffee shops, doing pottery, playing pickleball, making flower bouquets, and spending time with her Shiba Inu.
July 2026: Pre-Health Month
July 2026: Pre-Health Month
From our APAMSA family to you: welcome to Pre-Health Month! ✨ Join us this July as we support pre-health students navigating the path to medicine with honest conversations, practical guidance, and community-centered mentorship.
Throughout the month, we’ll be hosting three featured events designed to demystify the pre-health journey and help students feel more prepared and better-informed.
First, join us for an extracurriculars fair highlighting different ways to gain meaningful experience before medical school, including research, clinical work, community service, volunteering, and summer programs. Students will have the chance to learn more about opportunities in basic science, clinical research, community health, medical assisting, EMT work, scribing, non-clinical volunteering, and more.
We’ll also be hosting Choosing a Medical School, a candid discussion on thoughtfully building a school list, MD vs. DO programs, and the factors that are (or aren’t) actually important to consider when choosing a school in the opinions of current medical students.
Finally, we’ll close out the month with a Q&A with admissions officers, where students will have the opportunity to hear directly from those involved in the admissions process and learn what medical schools are really looking for.
Whether you’re just beginning your pre-health journey or preparing to apply, we hope this month helps you feel more confident, connected, and supported.
Sign up here for APAMSA’s new pre-health email list for information on pre-health-specific events and opportunities!
July 1, 2026
Looking for guidance on the pre-health journey? APAMSA’s Big Sib/Little Sib Mentorship Program is here to connect undergraduate pre-health students with current medical students for meaningful mentorship, support, and community.
Little Sibs can receive one-on-one guidance on course planning, personal statements, medical school applications, specialty exploration, and more. Big Sibs will have the opportunity to give back, build mentorship experience, and support the next generation of physicians.
NEW THIS YEAR: Little Sibs will get *exclusive access* to APAMSA’s list of Campus Ambassadors! The Ambassadors are current medical students who have generously volunteered to answer questions from pre-health students about their schools to faciliate the process of deciding which schools to apply to and attend.
This program is open for the 2026–2027 academic year, with quarterly check-ins and opportunities to connect at regional and national conferences.
Applications close: July 31, 2026
Pairing reveal: August 2026
Apply now and join a community built on mentorship, support, and shared growth.
July 7, 2026
Are you looking for ways to get involved outside the classroom? Unsure which extracurriculars align with your interests and goals as a future healthcare professional?
Join APAMSA’s Pre-Health Month for our Extracurricular Fair, where medical students will share their experiences with research, clinical opportunities, volunteering, leadership, and other meaningful activities and reflect on how their extracurricular experiences enhanced their medical school applications. Discover new opportunities, ask questions, and learn how different extracurricular paths can help you grow personally and professionally while preparing for a career in medicine.
Date: July 7, 2026
Time: 6 PM PT / 9 PM ET
July 21, 2026
Are you stuck deciding between an MD or DO program? Are you unsure of what the difference between the two is? Join us for APAMSA’s Pre-Health Month as we explore the similarities, differences, and misconceptions between allopathic and osteopathic medicine. We’ll discuss differences in curriculum, licensing, philosophy of care, and residency competitiveness to help inform you of which path may be a better fit for you!
Date: July 21, 2026
Time: 6 PM PT / 9 PM ET
July 28, 2026
The Pre-Health Admissions Panel is an opportunity for students who are interested in pursuing medicine to ask questions to Admissions Officers from various institutions. Join to get a better sense of how to prepare for applications and what to expect throughout the whole process!
Date: July 28, 2026
Time: 6 PM PT / 9 PM ET
APAMSA x Vot-ER Partnerships Internship
Job Title: APAMSA Partnerships & Civic Health Intern
Effective Date: 2026 Summer & Fall Academic Semesters
Compensation: Academic Credit
Weekly Hourly Expectation: 15-20 hours/week
Note: This internship is only available to current members of Asian Pacific American Medical Student Association (APAMSA).
Job Summary: The Partnerships & Civic Health Intern will serve as a critical link between the Asian Pacific American Medical Student Association and Vot-ER, supporting Vot-ER as we continue to grow and deepen relationships with health institutions across the country. This role is designed for a proactive, detail-oriented student leader who is passionate about the intersection of health and democracy. You will be responsible for deepening current organizational ties, onboarding new partners, and spearheading a specialized initiative focused on the Emergency Patient Voting (EPV) Program.
Key Responsibilities:
1) Relationship Management: Support the Deputy Director of Partnerships in maintaining high-touch communication with existing partners to increase engagement.
2) Expansion: Actively identify and “bring into the fold” new health-related organizations to expand our national footprint beyond current partners.
3) Civic Holiday Orchestration: Prepare and execute mobilization strategies and communications assets for Civic Holidays (e.g., National Voter Registration Day, National Voter Education Week, Vote Early Day).
If you have any questions, feel free to contact advocacy@apamsa.org.
See the job posting and submit an application at: tinyurl.com/APAMSAVotERInternship
Katherine Xie, South Regional Conference Committee Member
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Katherine Xie is an incoming sophomore at Rice University studying Biosciences with a concentration in Cell Biology and Genetics. She is passionate about pursuing a career in medicine, with a particular interest in dermatology and the intersection of clinical care and scientific research. Katherine is especially interested in translational medicine, skin biology, and skincare innovation, and hopes to contribute to advancing patient care through research-driven discoveries. Through her academic and extracurricular experiences, she aims to develop as both a clinician and researcher dedicated to improving health outcomes.