Rakira is a first-year Med Serve Fellow at AMM, and will be at AMM for a total of two years.

Med Serve is a program through AmeriCorps that allows students interested in pre-health careers, such as becoming a physician or a physician's assistant, to serve for two years at a clinic in North Carolina. All the clinics focus on primary care in some form or fashion, and fellows serve in different clinical roles as medical assistants, health coaches, scribes, and anything related to that. They also serve in a community health role as health educators, outreach personnel, population health specialists, and more.

During her first two months, Rakira has assisted in organizing a community health partnership with community recreation centers in the 27610 area code. Along with AMM’s Medical Director and AMM’s Volunteer and Community Outreach Coordinator, Rakira has attended Live Well Wake Health Strategy meetings and assisted with AMM’s booths at National Night Out, Davie Street Presbyterian Health and Wellness Fair, and most recently, Asia Fest. In the clinic, Rakira has been working alongside Dr. Thakur to help patients get settled in exam rooms.

Rakira’s goal is to one day be a physician. By being a Med Serve Fellow, she is able to gain clinic experience while merging her interest in public health with real experience in the community. Rakira stated, “I am interested in family medicine, just generally building relationships with the patients long-term and getting to see them over a long period of time. I’m also interested in infectious diseases. Before joining Med Serve, I did HIV research, and I got to learn a little bit more about like what it's like for people living with HIV and how to manage it.”