Sriram Shamasunder, MD, DTM+H

Professor

Sriram Shamasunder graduated from University of California, Berkeley and completed his residency in Internal Medicine at Harbor UCLA Medical Center. He obtained his Diploma in Tropical Medicine & Hygiene in 2013. Throughout the last decade he has spent several months out of every year in underserved settings around the world including South Los Angeles, rural Liberia, Haiti, Burundi, and rural India.

Sri is a Professor of Medicine at UCSF, and co-founder and faculty director of the HEAL Initiative, a health workforce strengthening fellowship working in Navajo Nation and 9 countries around the world. HEAL currently has over 200 fellows, over the last nine years, half of whom are Native American and from low and middle income countries(LMIC).

He was awarded the Young Physician of the Year in 2010, by the Northern California Chapter of the American College of Physicians and was named an Asia21 fellow by the Asia Foundation in 2012, a Fulbright-Nehru scholar to India in 2012 and a Draper Richards Kaplan entrepreneur in 2016. He was an Emerson Dial Fellow in 2021, and received the UCSF Chancellor's Edison T. Uno Award for Public Service in 2023.

Dr. Shamasunder led the HEAL UCSF response during the ongong COVID surge in Navajo Nation spending several weeks with HEAL's partner site hospital taking care of COVID patients and supporting UCSF nursing and doctor volunteers. Over 40 nurses and doctors In April, May and June 2020 from UCSF joined the over 50 HEAL fellows(Native and non-Native) in Navajo Nation. Navajo Area Indian Health Service Awarded HEAL Volunteer of the Year for 2020 for this effort.

Sri is a published poet and studied and taught with June Jordan’s Poetry for the People while at UC Berkeley. He is interested in a solidarity that draws untold stories to the surface as well as health equity. In 2016, he gave a Berkeley Ted X talk entitled "Whose Suffering Matters Less, and Why"?
Education
DTM&H, 03/2013 - Tropical Medicine, Cayetano Heredia University
M.D., 2005 - School of Medicine, New York
Honors and Awards
  • Social Entrepreneurial Award, Draper Richards Kaplan, 2016
  • Fulbright-Nehru Senior Scholar to India(host institution SOCHARA), 2012
  • Asia 21 Fellow, Asia Society, 2011-2012
  • Young Physician of the Year, American College of Physicians, 2010
Websites
  • Landing Page
Publications
  1. Percy S, Sahi S, Bua E, Shamasunder S, Lipnick M, Law T. Living the work: the HEAL Initiative as a model for perioperative health workforce transformation and health equity work. Canadian journal of anaesthesia = Journal canadien d'anesthesie 2023. PMID: 37217737


  2. Bongiovanni T, Shamasunder S, Brown W, Rivera Carpenter C, Pantell M, Ghali B, Harrison JD. Lessons learned from academic medical centers' response to the COVID-19 pandemic in partnership with the Navajo Nation. "Are Telehealth Visits Feasible for Vulnerable Patients?" 2022. PMID: 35381019


  3. Harvey M, Neff J, Knight KR, Mukherjee JS, Shamasunder S, Le PV, Tittle R, Jain Y, Carrasco H, Bernal-Serrano D, Goronga T, Holmes SM. Structural competency and global health education. Global public health 2020. PMID: 33351721


  4. Shamasunder S, Holmes SM, Goronga T, Carrasco H, Katz E, Frankfurter R, Keshavjee S. COVID-19 reveals weak health systems by design: Why we must re-make global health in this historic moment. Global public health 2020. PMID: 32352911


  5. Sujatha Sankaran, Sriram Shamasunder, Marcia Glass, Mhoira E.F. Leng. Noncommunicable Diseases in Crisis Regions. "Are Telehealth Visits Feasible for Vulnerable Patients?" 2019. PMID:


  6. Jacobs ZG, Tittle R, Scarpelli J, Cortez K, Aptekar SD, Shamasunder S. Reflective Practices Among Global Health Fellows in the HEAL Initiative: a Qualitative Study. Journal of general internal medicine 2019. PMID: 30604118


  7. Tobey M, Amir O, Beste J, Jung P, Shamasunder S, Tutt M, Shah S, Le P. Physician Workforce Partnerships in Rural American Indian/Alaska Native Communities and the Potential of Post-Graduate Fellowships. Journal of health care for the poor and underserved 2019. PMID: 31130529


  8. Citrin D, Mehanni S, Acharya B, Wong L, Nirola I, Sherchan R, Gauchan B, Karki KB, Singh DR, Shamasunder S, Le P, Schwarz D, Schwarz R, Dangal B, Dhungana SK, Maru S, Mahar R, Thapa P, Raut A, Adhikari M, Basnett I, Kaluanee SP, Deukmedjian G, Halliday S, Maru D. Power, potential, and pitfalls in global health academic partnerships: review and reflections on an approach in Nepal. Global health action 2017. PMID: 28914185


  9. M.S. Lipnick, E. Ayebale, F. Lester, M. Autry, S. Shamasunder, P.V. Le. Novel global health fellowship model for anesthesia, obstetrics & gynecology and surgery. Annals of global health 2016. PMID:


  10. R.S. Goldman, R.L. Tittle, A.E. Waters, B. Lewis, P.V. Le, S. Shamasunder. Preparing trainees to practice global health equity: the experience from the first year of the Health Equity Action and Leadership (HEAL) initiative. Annals of global health 2016. PMID:


  11. Priyank Jain, Timothy Laux, Sriram Shamasunder, Yogesh Jain. Problem solving and learning from clinical cases in rural India using global network of volunteer physician experts. Annals of global health 2016. PMID:


  12. E. Wu, M. Singh, P.V. Le, M. Dandu, K. Duderstadt, T. Brock, B. Lewis, H. Lee, S. Shamasunder. Global health bootcamp: An innovative interprofessional course for clinicians dedicated to equitable global health care delivery. Annals of global health 2015. PMID:


  13. S. Asao, B. Lewis, M. Singh, R. Tittle, S. Shamasunder, M. Dandu, H. Lee, P.V. Le. HEAL Initiative. Annals of global health 2015. PMID:


  14. Waters A, Wu E, Shamasunder S, Le P. The role of hospitalists in the Ebola response in the United States and abroad. Journal of hospital medicine 2014. PMID: 25471530


  15. Shamasunder S, Wu E. Global Health Telemedicine Conferences: The System We Save May Be Our Own. Journal of graduate medical education 2014. PMID: 26140109


  16. Watkins ER, Shamasunder S, Cascino T, White KL, Katrak S, Bern C, Schwartz BS. Visceral leishmaniasis-associated hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis in a traveler returning from a pilgrimage to the Camino de Santiago. Journal of travel medicine 2014. PMID: 25145768


  17. Shamasunder S. Sounds of Haiti. Journal of general internal medicine 2011. PMID: 21053088