CASA Student Of The Month 2022

JANUARY 2022

Hello, my name is Muhammed Yaseen Tagari, and I am a sixth-year
chiropractic student registered at the University of Johannesburg.
I would like to start this off by expressing my humble appreciation
to the Chiropractic Association of South Africa for giving me this
opportunity and the honor of being the CASA student member of the
month for January 2022.

My chiropractic journey began in 2015 where personal experience
with chiropractic care had piqued my interest in this incredible
medical discipline. In 2015 I received the devastating news of
having, amongst other knee injuries, a complete right ACL rupture
with a partial meniscal tear that required surgical intervention.
For 6 weeks in anticipation of surgery, I consulted with a Chiropractor
and after an extensive rehabilitation program I was able to walk
into an orthopedic office without crutches or a brace resulting in
the surgery being deemed no longer necessary. Six years later
and I manage to continue as normal and partake in sport with the
assistance provided to me by my chiropractor.

I matriculated from Redwood Academy in Johannesburg in 2016 and began my studies in 2017.
It is daunting for any first-year student, venturing into a completely new world, with the anticipations
of what the next 6 years have in store. As the years went by, I found my self gaining more and more
interest in the various aspects of what this academic program had to offer. In 2018 I became
a member of the World Congress of Chiropractic Students and in 2019 was voted in to be the
co-committee chair to the WCCS charities committee. This granted me the opportunity of helping
those in our local communities in various manners with the assistance of my fellow colleagues.
This opportunity was an eye opener to the devastating realities fellow South African citizens
experience in their daily lives. These projects were mainly confined to helping in and around our
neighboring areas and has personally pushed me towards wanting to expand my borders and
provide to humanity on a global scale.

Building on from this steppingstone, I have had the amazing opportunities of being a delegate to two
of the WCCS international AGMs and being a speaker at one of these. For the 2020-2021 term I
was the WCCS-UJ Chapter Vice chairperson during which time I also held the position of Legislative
Editor in Chief for the WCCS internationally. I have
had the honor of being part of two delegations to
the World Health Assembly once with the World
Federation of Chiropractic delegation to the 73rd
WHA and once with the International Federation
of Medical Students Associations delegation to
the 74th WHA. During the 74th WHA I was part
of a working group in the IFMSA focusing on the
global health workforce and joined in a statement
calling for decent working conditions, gender
equity, safety and zero tolerance to violence,
management for migration & my area of interest in
the working group of interprofessional education
and collaboration.

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JANUARY 2022

I am extremely passionate about voicing opinions for youth in health,
chiropractic education, interprofessionalism and collaboration in the
health workforce. I have started working closely with and developed
the relationship between the WCCS organization and the Asia
Pacific Chiropractic Journal wherein the WCCS has so far been
able to feature 4 articles from the Board of Directors and amongst
these I have recently had my first article published in the Asia-Pacific
chiropractic journal titled “Youth Leadership and Representation in
Healthcare: The importance of youth having a voice in the Healthcare
sector.”
I have been part of the executive team for the UJ Student Chiropractic
Sports Council for the past three terms serving as its Secretary and
Treasurer (2019-2020), Events coordinator (2020-2021), and
currently as its chairperson and head of the UJ FICS student club. In
my term as events coordinator, I was able to co-ordinate, along with
the rest of my team, a weekly sports webinar series. This series was
over 11 weeks and covered various topics by various sports chiropractors. I have recently facilitated
a panel discussion in collaboration with the WCCS and FICS on “Mentorship for the future sports
chiropractor” hosting two of the top international sports chiropractors. Over the last few years, I have
been able to work at a variety of sporting events accumulating the highest working hours in my year.
In 2021 I had the opportunity of working at a weeklong event (MAD2Adventure2021) as one of 6
chiropractic students assisting runners and cyclists who raced across South Africa as part of a charity
initiative with the Make A Difference foundation.
I am currently the Director of External Affairs for the World Congress of Chiropractic Students and
Chairperson of the University of Johannesburg Student Chiropractic Sports Council as well as one of
four international recipients of the 2022 FICS Student Scholarship awards.

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