Medical Student Honored by the AMSA
Neil Singh Bedi, a fourth-year medical student, was recently awarded the 2025 Paul Ambrose Outstanding Student Award from the American Medical Student Association (AMSA), American Public Health Association, and the Physicians for Social Responsibility.
Neil Singh BediThe honor was bestowed at the 2025 Health Activist Dinner held during the annual American Public Health Association conference.
Each year, the AMSA recognizes an outstanding student based on nominations from around the country. The award honors the memory of Paul Ambrose, MD, a trailblazing activist who devoted his career to advancing public health and policy. While in medical school, Ambrose became deeply engaged in the work of AMSA. In 1995, he became AMSA’s Legislative Affairs Director, and created the AMSA Political Leadership Institute, later renamed the Paul Ambrose Health Care for All Leadership Institute, which teaches health policy and advocacy skills to medical students. Ambrose was on board American Airlines Flight 77 when it crashed into the Pentagon in the Sept 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
“I’m deeply grateful for the mentors I’ve had on my journey, and the passionate, intelligent people I get to work with and learn from every day. I’ve been thinking a lot about a mentor of mine that we lost earlier this year, Professor George Annas, who was never afraid to say what needed to be said and do what needed to be done,” said Bedi.
“Neil Singh Bedi is the most distinguished student I have mentored in my 30-year career as faculty at Boston University, not only for his pioneering work at BU but also for his integrity and compassion,” said Sondra Crosby, MD, professor of medicine. Crosby highlighted Bedi’s work in forming the Stop Shackling Patients Coalition of students, clinicians, public health practitioners, human rights advocates and community members to humanize the inpatient treatment of incarcerated patients especially when they are critically ill and dying. “Neil Singh spearheaded a change in this policy at Boston Medical Center, now provides for a clearer process to allow certain patients to be unshackled, affording them human dignity at their most vulnerable time. This policy modification is now being implemented in hospitals across the nation,” said Crosby.
Bedi, a California native, is a 2022 graduate from BU’s College of Arts & Sciences with a BA in medical sciences and a double minor in public health and psychology. His research and advocacy endeavors lie at the intersection of public health and clinical care, with a vision to make health systems more sustainable, effective, and equitable.
He was a 2025 Zuckerman Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School Center for Public Leadership and that same year earned his Master of Public Health from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Additionally, Bedi is a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha National Medical Honor Society and the Gold Humanism Honor Society. Upon completion of medical school this spring, he plans to pursue residency training in internal medicine – pediatrics. He aspires to serve as both a physician and public health leader, treating symptoms at the bedside and healing systems at scale.