She speaks a number of different languages which helps her communicate and connect better with patients with different cultural and ethnic backgrounds.Īfter her chief residency, she served as an assistant residency program director at UCLA-Olive View and became director of the program in 2003. And she's global when it comes to languages as well. She also has been invited as a speaker at International conferences on medical education or as a visiting professor to Australia, Canada, Europe, and Japan. Her global health projects for the underserved have seen her spend time in Africa, India, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Argentina, Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, Cuba and Belize. I'm sending resident trainees and faculty and I've gone there multiple times myself trying to provide care to patients and to improve access to care,” Dr. “Last year, I helped start a global health rotation in Belize where they have very limited access to health care in parts of that country. Wali has worked to give her students the same opportunities she's had when it comes to caring for the underserved. That's my calling.’ I wanted to be a doctor and a teacher and I get to do both.”ĭr.
After chief residency, I completed a two-year fellowship in Medical Education at UCLA and found that opportunity to teach, I said ‘Wow, this is it. “When I started my chief residency, I found out that I could do both by being in academic medicine. I've devoted my career to serving the underserved.”īut a medical career didn't mean a life without teaching. “It's part of UCLA where we provide care to the underserved patient population. “I specifically picked UCLA Olive View because it's a county hospital,” she says. She's been at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center ever since where she is Chair of the Department of Medicine. She attended the University of Illinois College of Medicine, Chicago and then returned to UCLA for her residency at the UCLA-Olive View Medical Center. It was UCLA's academic reputation, as well as having family nearby, that brought her west. But I always wanted to go into medicine and education.Īfter finishing high school, it was off to the United States and UCLA for undergraduate studies in Southern California. Some people are undecided all the way through college. I never really changed my mind about what I wanted to do. I always wanted to become a doctor, even when I was a child. But I always wanted to go into medicine and education,” she explains. “But I always wanted to become a doctor, even when I was a child.
“I was introduced to the health field early on by my father who spent his career focusing on improving health outcomes for the underserved patient population by providing access to medication and immunization,” she says. She thought a career in medicine or education would allow her to contribute significantly to society. Wali, the child of Afghani parents, lived in Europe prior to coming to the United States and says she either wanted to be a doctor or a teacher. Soma Wali has found a way to combine the things she holds most dear.ĭr. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that Dr. She's also made it her mission to educate medical students, residents, and young physicians and swell the ranks of internists across the United States and around the globe. Many of our students have matched in well-known and very highly regarded residency programs including: University of California San Francisco, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science, New York University School of Medicine, University of Chicago, Emory University School of Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, UC San Diego and Kaiser Permanente.She's traveled the world to treat the underserved.