Dr. Ijeoma Opara recently wrote a first-person piece for Global Citizen

Dr. Ijeoma Opara, former doctoral student from the FSHD Department, is now an assistant professor at Stony Brook University & director of the Substance Abuse and Sexual Health Lab. Dr. Opara recently wrote a first-person piece for Global Citizen about what convinced her to finally get the COVID-19 vaccine: Trust in her public health colleagues.

Dr. Opara says, “I put myself in their shoes and remembered that obtaining a terminal degree (such as a PhD or MD) requires a level of dedication and borderline obsessiveness of knowing the ins and outs of a specific area. I am not an immunologist, virologist, or a biomedical scientist, so why would I not listen to the experts of an area that I was not trained in? It’s their job to protect me and others against viruses.”