Q&A with Anisha Abraham, M.D., '86

2/26/2020

Anisha Abraham, M.D., '86 is a pediatrician, teen health expert, speaker and consultant. After graduating from Tower Hill, she completed her medical degree at Boston University in a seven-year BA/MD program, her pediatric residency at Walter Reed Hospital, a fellowship in adolescent medicine at Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and a master’s in Public Health at George Washington University. During her career, Abraham has served in a variety of roles including as Chief of Adolescent Medicine, a Lt. Colonel in the US Army and Medical Director of a school-based clinic. She is currently based in Amsterdam, Netherlands, and has been on faculty at the University of Amsterdam, Chinese University of Hong Kong and Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C. Her upcoming book, Raising Global Teens: Parenting in the 21st Century, will be published in April 2020.

Why do you do what you do?

When I went to medical school there were many different paths to choose from. I liked pediatrics, but also OBGYN and psychiatry. In the end, working with teenagers was this perfect combination of all of those different elements for me. I also felt that if you connect with a young person and get them to talk about what is happening in their lives, that you, as a physician, can have a very powerful positive impact. In every person’s development, adolescence is a crucial time of growth and experimentation on the road toward adulthood. To have, as an adolescent doctor, the ability to effect some positive changes and help young people do well, thrive and be healthy, is really a wonderful experience. It was the feeling that there is so much hope in working with young people that made it my passion.

Tell me about your book that’s coming out this spring. What inspired you to write a book?

The premise of the book is that as the world is becoming more mobile and more globalized, there are more and more young people, like myself, who are children of immigrants, live outside their home country or have parents from different ethnic or cultural backgrounds. There is an increasing number of people moving across the globe. When you have this cross-cultural existence as a young person, there are some amazing things that happen like increased adaptability and tolerance and languages you learn. At the same time, it can be challenging to figure out who you really are while going through adolescence, a time when young people build their sense of identity. Therefore, the premise of the book is to help young people define themselves during adolescence against the background of a cross-cultural existence. The lessons, tips and practical advice I have put together is based on the many questions young people and parents have asked me during my own global life as a doctor between the U.S., Hong Kong and the Netherlands. The book is meant to start conversations and get people to think about what culture, identity and grown up means for them.

In fact, my experience at Tower Hill was formative and a catalyst of the book as well. For me, Tower Hill was a school that really thinks about the holistic development of young people, including not just academics, but also arts and sports. What was challenging about my time at Tower Hill was that I was the first South Asian American to graduate from the school, and at the time there were no more than two or three other minority students in my class. There wasn’t a lot of diversity, and that made me really think about what it’s like to be different, what it means in terms of being an American, but of South Asian heritage. When I went home, my parents had different norms than what I was experiencing in school. So, the complicated process of fitting in and trying to define who I was, a lot of that was happening when I was at Tower Hill. Then, a few years back I held a TEDx talk in Wilmington and spoke about how to understand and work with teens, and I gave examples from my own adolescence and growing up in Delaware. Afterward, I was asked whether I’d be interested in writing a book based on my personal and professional experience, and that was the beginning of this journey.

What do you enjoy doing outside of work?

Tower Hill’s emphasis on physical activity stuck with me. I really love sports, and I’m a marathon runner and try to get out and run as much as I can. I also stay active in other ways: swimming and yoga are among my favorites. We live in the Netherlands and so we’re on our bikes all the time. Travel and exploring are also a very important part of my life. And, last but not least, giving back and community service, which Tower Hill also a emphasized, is in my view critical to being a well-rounded person in our society.

How do you feel that Tower Hill influenced your life and career?

At the time, in the 1980s, my parents were unable to afford the tuition and so Tower Hill helped out financially, which made my life. Without the Tower Hill experience, I never would have had that launching pad that opened up the world to me career-wise and personally. I’m very grateful that people had the vision at the time to provide scholarships for folks who came from very different backgrounds. Not only providing a solid academic background, but also the vision to help people from different backgrounds and giving them access to high class education really changed my world.

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