Sadaf Sherzai: Health Educator and Future Podiatrist

This story is one of a series titled "Profiles of Passion," which features incoming SMU students who have demonstrated their dedication to transforming healthcare in their communities and the world even before their first day of classes. Click here for other stories in the series.

Helping immigrants to resettle in the United States was particularly rewarding for Sadaf Sherzai because, like her own family who fled war-torn Afghanistan, many have endured trauma in their homelands and then experience culture shock when they arrive in the United States.

“I know firsthand what it’s like to struggle and come from a country that has nothing,” says Sherzai, who worked on the health education team of the International Rescue Committee before beginning her studies this year at Samuel Merritt University’s California School of Podiatric Medicine.

Like many émigrés from war-torn countries, Sherzai’s journey to the United States was not an easy one. Her family left Afghanistan in 1988 a few months after she was born in the hope of coming to the U.S. During a layover in India, she says they discovered that their immigration lawyer had stolen all of their money and forged their documents. As a result, she says they were denied passage and forced to stay in refugee camps in India for nearly four years.

Finally arriving in California was a dream come true for her parents, who wanted to ensure a good education for their daughters. Despite economic struggles and occasional bouts of discrimination -- after the 9/11 attacks, Sherzai says she was called a “terrorist” by high school classmates -- she fulfilled her family’s dream by graduating from college.

Her interest in a healthcare career, however, began much earlier when as a child she witnessed her father, a taxi driver, suffer severe burns when he attempted to fix an old car. While communicating with the emergency room doctor about her father’s condition, she recalls him telling her: “You have a long way to go, kid. But I see a bright future in medicine for you.”

Soon after college graduation, Sherzai set her sights on becoming a podiatrist: “Podiatry intrigues me because feet are the foundation of one's body,” she says. “It’s a very underrated field.”

While taking science courses and doing a variety of internships in clinical research and patient care, Sherzai also volunteered in the Oakland office of the International Rescue Committee (IRC). Because she is fluent in English, Farsi and Dari Persian, as well semi-fluent in Spanish, Sherzai says she was the first point of contact for many of the newly arrived immigrants – often meeting them at the airport and sometimes hosting families in her home.

“It struck home to me that I could be there for them the day they arrived in the United States,” she says.

Health education was a major focus of her work at IRC, where Sherzai says she conducted information sessions about good nutrition and how to access medical services, often accompanying the immigrants to medical appointments to help with translation. She says she knows from personal experience with her extended family how a diet high in carbohydrates, fat and sugar can lead to chronic conditions like diabetes.

Once Sherzai earns her podiatry degree, she says she hopes to specialize in wound care and one day participate on a global relief mission to a developing country.

“Volunteer work makes me feel good,” she says. “It’s better than having money.”