Olivia Familusi

Olivia Familusi is a fourth-year medical student at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. She is currently taking a year off to complete the MSHP degree. Originally from Long Island, New York, she graduated from Tufts University in 2017 where she obtained a BS in Biology and Anthropology. There, she studied the ways in which Black people communicate their experiences with disease and the healthcare system through various artforms such as music. Through her work at Tufts, Olivia realized her passion for improving the health of marginalized peoples. As a medical student, Olivia has worked on various community outreach initiatives such as Cut Hypertension, a hypertension prevention program in Philadelphia barbershops, and Covenant House Philadelphia, a homeless shelter for at-risk youth. She also volunteered with the Penn Medicine Social Needs Response Team, connecting patients with food, housing, and financial support during the COVID-19 pandemic. In pursing an MSHP, Olivia plans to produce research that will enact policy change towards ameliorating health disparities in the marginalized communities she serves. She is interested in researching how the intersectional and multidimensional identities of patients and physicians impact communication, education, and access surrounding surgical care. As a student in the Medical Education Certificate Program and Academic Surgery Certificate Program at the Perelman School of Medicine, Olivia seeks to use her research not only to enact policy change, but also to better educate future generations of physicians about the diversity that exists amongst our patient populations.