Rosemary Agwuncha ‘18

This bio is current as of 2020.

Rosemary Agwuncha graduated from Notre Dame in 2018 with a major in Theology and Pre-Health Studies and a minor in International Development Studies. She is currently an MS1 at the University of Houston's College of Medicine and she is grateful to be a member of the school's inaugural class. She looks forward to becoming a primary care physician and working alongside her colleagues to address health disparities in the Greater Houston area, across Texas, as well as in her home country of Nigeria. Looking at the intersections of holistic wellbeing, justice, faith, and racial equity are some of her areas of interest. 

This bio was current as of 2018, when she was part of the on-campus Kellogg community.

This summer, I received a Kellogg/Kroc Undergraduate Research Grant to conduct research in Enugu-Ukwu and Nawfia, Anambra State, Nigeria for six weeks. My research focused on assessing the level of compassion that patients sense they receive and the amount of compassion that doctors/nurses believe that they convey during care. I wanted to understand how this factor of compassion affects patient satisfaction with care as well as what factors might prove to be a barrier to this compassion in care. I plan to use these perceptions of care, especially its compassionate or non-compassionate nature, to develop my International Development Studies capstone, under the guidance of Prof. Vania Smith-Oka. I will explore these perceptions of compassion from both the patient and doctor/nurse point of view, how much value people attribute to compassion in healthcare, and barriers to compassion in healthcare settings in the Nigerian context.

Kellogg has blessed me with a number of incredible experiences during my time here at Notre Dame. The summer of my sophomore year I received the Experiencing the World Fellowship to go to Nigeria for eight weeks to conduct research on people who travel outside of Nigeria for medical treatment to learn about the most common motivating factors behind their travel, the places they frequent, and learn about what that entire process looked like for each person. I also shadowed at a hospital during my time in Nigeria to get a first-hand understanding of what the healthcare environment is like in Nigeria. During fall break of my junior year I also received funding from the Kellogg International Scholars Program to attend a conference titled: 6th Global Forum on Health Promotion, Health Promotion: At the Very Heart of Sustainability. Though I did not present, I was enriched by hearing a variety of incredible speakers from across the world, and from different fields. The conference focused on the importance of promoting preventative healthcare in order to empower people to make decisions for their well-being, to move away from costly curative care and develop a more sustainable approach to global health. And as mentioned above, I received funding through a Kellogg/Kroc Undergraduate Research Grant to conduct fieldwork for my International Development Studies capstone which will focus on compassion in care in the Nigerian context.