**Pause and Reset: This Is Our Wakeup Call with Global Health Physician Nassim Assefi**
Nassim Assefi, a second-generation Iranian-American, is an internist specializing in women's health and global medicine. Recently she has been an academic in Seattle, a humanitarian aid worker in Kabul, and an aspiring musician in Havana. Currently, she is under quarantine lockdown in Morocco.
Nassim is especially fascinating to talk with because she’s taken nine sabbaticals in her life, one every three or four years, and in doing so she has learned paramount lessons about embracing uncertainty, which are incredibly applicable in this time of COVID-19.
If you are feeling isolated, this conversation will take you on a journey around the world as Nassim shares with us her experiences and observations working in global health, studying music and writing novels, salsa dancing, and having a child as a single mother in places like Iran, Afghanistan, Cuba, Havana and Turkey.
This conversation is rich with a global health physicians’ professional perspective on what is unique and especially dangerous about this coronavirus versus other viruses in history, what’s actually going in inside your body when you have it, and what Nassim has learned about what it means to be human in the context of grief and trauma.
We meet at the intersection of culture, politics and science to understand why this virus has become a way bigger problem in some countries and not so as bad in others, and discuss what is at stake if people continue to not take this seriously.
Finally, we shine a light on some of the less obvious positive and negative consequences of the virus, and Nassim leaves us with some profound advice about what we as individuals and global citizens should be doing right now to ensure a brighter future for the world.
For full show notes: https://www.baktashahadi.com/podcast (hyperlink)
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https://www.nassimassefi.com/
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Produced by: Dana Drahos
Edited by: Joseph Gangemi
Marketing by: Katherine An
Theme music by: Qais Essar
Artwork by: Masheed Ahadi
Photography for this episode by: Niku Kashef