Shilpa Murthy, MD, MPH

Shilpa S. Murthy MD MPH is an Assistant Professor of Surgery in the Division of Colon and Rectal Surgery. Dr. Murthy completed her undergraduate degree with high honors in Molecular Cellular and Developmental Biology from the University of Michigan. She attended medical school at Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine.

She completed her general surgery residency training at Indiana University and a colorectal fellowship at the John Goligher Colorectal Unit, NHS Leeds Teaching Hospitals, in England. This was sponsored by the Royal College of Surgeons England, and during her fellowship she was chosen as the Chief Administrative Colorectal Fellow. Her colorectal fellowship was focused on locally advanced and recurrent colorectal and anal cancers. She then went on to complete a Surgical Oncology Global Cancer Disparities Fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) where she spent clinical and research time training at MSKCC in New York City as well as in Nigeria, Africa.

Dr. Murthy’s research interests lie at the intersection of surgery and public health and how these two fields can improve cancer care delivery for underserved and disenfranchised patients. During her residency she obtained a Master of Public Health from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and was a research fellow at the Center for the Surgery and Public Health/Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston,Massachusetts where she was trained in health services research, global surgery/oncology, and spent time in Rwanda, Africa. Dr. Murthy worked as an attending general surgeon at Navajo Nation in Gallup, New Mexico for the Indian Health Service to better understand local disparities in surgical care.

Dr. Murthy also brings considerable experience as well working with the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland in the Cancer Division where she contributed to the WHO Report on Cancer and research on premature mortality outcomes of various cancers, and the cancer workforce. She was also a Lancet Commissioner for the Lancet Oncology Journal Commissions in Global Cancer Surgery Part I and Part II.

Dr. Murthy’s clinical practice consists of general and colorectal surgery at the West Haven Veterans Affairs Hospital in Connecticut and her research is dedicated to improving cancer care delivery for veterans and vulnerable patients.