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Fellow Focus in Four: Phyllis Thangaraj, Cardiovascular Medicine

August 05, 2024

Meet Yale clinical fellow Phyllis Thangaraj, MD, PhD, who seeks not only to practice medicine but to change it.

Why did you choose Yale Department of Internal Medicine for your fellowship?

From the day of my interview, I could tell that Yale Department of Internal Medicine residents were friendly and enthusiastic and that the program weighted rigorous training and trainee wellness equally. Since I am part of the combined physician-scientist training program, I also met my current research mentor, Dr. Rohan Khera, principal investigator of the Cardiovascular Data Science Lab, whose cutting-edge research in applying artificial intelligence to improve cardiovascular medicine complemented my interests in not only practicing medicine but changing it. The unique opportunity to work in a collegial and collaborative clinical environment and a stellar research lab made Yale an easy choice for me.

What was your path to Yale?

Go Bulldogs! I was a Yalie undergrad and am thrilled to have found my way back here. In between, I spent time at the National Institutes of Health modeling how we perceive illusions and how these perceptions change in autism. The research and my clinical experiences motivated me to pursue an MD/PhD at Columbia, where I learned that informatics is the perfect field for physician-scientists, since we utilize unique computational methods to tackle issues in clinical practice. My time on the cardiac ICU ward, where we regularly discussed data-driven clinical practice, mechanical and electromagnetic principles of the heart, and our patients’ dynamic health status through continuous monitoring, solidified my plan to pursue a research-intensive fellowship in cardiology.

Tell us about your research or career goals.

I’m passionate about practicing and advancing cardiovascular medicine, particularly in developing and bringing artificial intelligence solutions into the clinic. My research spans developing digital twins to generalize randomized clinical trials across patient populations, building automated and real-time clinical quality measures in the electronic health record, using large language models to improve health literacy, and applying these studies across large, multi-national health systems. As a cardiologist, I hope to bridge the gap from “desk” to bedside for these tools.

What’s a fun fact about you?

I’m an opera singer and was fortunate to spend my college years touring parts of the world with the fabulous Yale Glee Club!

The Department of Internal Medicine at Yale School of Medicine is among the nation's premier departments, bringing together an elite cadre of clinicians, investigators, educators, and staff in one of the world's top medical schools. To learn more, visit Internal Medicine.