Habiba
“One of my greatest challenges was this past summer I interned at the Children’s Cancer Hospital in Cairo, Egypt. Before this summer all of my experiences in the healthcare field have been in Canada. Having Egyptian roots did not seem to soften the blow of the shock I experienced as I got thrown into that environment and learned how vastly different healthcare systems across the world can be and how tremendous a role culture plays in the delivery and acceptance of healthcare.”
Habiba is 22, a pharmacy student at the University of Saskatchewan, a part-time employee at a pharmacy, and she does all this while assisting in research projects supporting the expanded role of pharmacists . She is also actively engaged in the pharmaceutical world through her volunteer work: she conducts presentations about pharmacy school to elementary school kids and does presentations to newcomers about how the Canadian healthcare system works and about the dispensing process. Her goal is to use all this experience to work in the drug safety field in “other parts of the world where medications are not used safely or effectively.” As a Canadian Muslim, she feels the urge to blaze a new trail for Muslim youth to be leaders in their community. She has begun on that path by participating with her local Muslim Communications Outreach Committee. She loves to spend her free time engaged in different things such as water colour painting in which she’s taken classes for 7 years, travelling, and spending time with her friends. When I asked Habiba what’s most important to her she told me, “not losing touch with my heritage even though I never really lived in Egypt, it holds a special place in my heart and I try to go back every year.” Her own favourite quality is “how close I’ve held my morals and values and how I haven’t compromised them.”
Q&A Feature:
What is a fun fact about you that you haven’t told me yet?
“I’m a huge traveler and I’ve been to many countries, but for some reason I keep going back to Italy and I hope to spend some part of my career there in the future.”
How do you want to be perceived?
“I want to be seen as someone who puts other people first but still isn’t afraid to stand up for herself, others, and what she believes in.”
