As part of our “Meet Yale Internal Medicine” series, today’s featured physician is Sarwat Chaudhry, MD, associate professor of medicine (general internal medicine); co-director, National Clinician Scholars Program; and vice-chair, Dean’s Faculty Advisory Council.
Chicago native Sarwat Chaudhry, MD, was always drawn to biology and science as long as she could remember. The daughter of a home daycare provider, Chaudhry discovered that a career in medicine could combine her interests in understanding people and their stories, and helping them to achieve their goals with her love of health sciences.
While working as an internal medicine physician, Chaudhry uncovered a desire to address some healthcare shortcomings that she was already seeing in her practice but realized at that time, she didn’t really have the skillset to identify important questions and gather evidence in a rigorous way.
So she applied to the National Clinician Scholars Program (NCSP) at Yale, an interprofessional fellowship program designed to prepare a select group of future clinician leaders to improve health and health care in the U.S. through scholarship and action at the national, state, and local levels, was accepted, and relocated to New Haven.
Chaudhry actually credits NCSP, the program she now co-directs, for changing her career trajectory.
“The NCSP was the best thing that I ever did professionally,” Chaudhry explained. “Before I came to Yale School of Medicine (YSM) and developed these wonderful mentoring and collaborative relationships, I solely provided clinical care. I had a phenomenal panel of patients and I found patient care to be very rewarding in many ways, but always knew that I wanted more. But I simply would not have had the skill set to lead large-scale research programs to inform health care redesign had I not come to Yale and done the National Clinical Scholars Program.”
One such large-scale research project is the recently published SILVER-AMI cardiac study. Chaudhry and team used performance on a mobility test to predict whether an older heart attack patient would be readmitted to the hospital and discovered that functional mobility was the strongest predictor of hospital readmission in this patient mix. Learn more about “Thirty-Day Readmission Risk Model for Older Adults Hospitalized With Acute Myocardial Infarction: The SILVER-AMI Study” in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes.
In addition to her NCSP work and research endeavors, she works as a hospitalist at Yale New Haven Hospital. Chaudhry is a principal investigator for Center for Healthcare Innovation, Redesign and Learning (CHIRAL). CHIRAL’s goal is to reduce adverse outcomes that can be caused by the transfer of patients between treatment teams and even medical facilities. A joint venture between YSM and Yale New Haven Hospital, the team studies care transitions between skilled nursing facilities, neurologic emergency transfers, and transfers within the hospital through patient safety learning laboratories. The learnings are used to improve the quality and safety of the transfer process for their patients.
Chaudhry is also thrilled by her colleagues and mentees at YSM.
“Whether I'm working with interns and residents in the hospital or I'm working with the clinical scholars who are committed to becoming leaders in healthcare and becoming outstanding researchers or policy makers, there's just an energy and an excitement here across all levels that has just kept me energized,” said Chaudhry.
“Yale has been a really phenomenal place for me to have professional satisfaction & success. At YSM, there is an abundance of incredibly smart, motivated & really high-quality people who are dedicated to excellence in all regards.”
Just don’t ask her about the pizza.
“I have to confess, I am not a huge pizza fan,” said Chaudhry. “But I do love Chicago deep dish.”
To learn more about the National Clinician Scholars Program at Yale, visit NSCP. For more information on CHIRAL, visit the Center for Healthcare Innovation, Redesign and Learning.