Faculty spotlight: Meena Ramchandani
Background
Dr. Meena Ramchandani is a Los Angeles native who was drawn to medicine by a passion for teaching, working with patients and the opportunity to make a difference.
She attended UC Berkeley for her bachelors and master of public health degrees before spending several years working in HIV immunology research with the National Institute of Health. Ramchandani credits her mentor during her MPH program and her experience at the NIH with solidifying her interest in infectious diseases and HIV research and care.
She attended Drexel University for medical school, then returning to the west coast for internal medicine residency at UCSF.
“Some of our pathways in medicine are serendipitous as we often are interested in more than one thing. I was interested in many different specialties both in medical school and residency but I was continually drawn to ID,” she said.
After residency, she was drawn to UW for ID fellowship because of the sense of community and the breadth of opportunities the institution offers. “Everyone is doing exciting research, starting new projects, public health programs, educational endeavors, etc. It’s a wonderful place to be,” she said. Staying on as faculty member, she has established herself as a clinician, researcher and educator focusing on HIV and STIs.
She is now an associate professor in the Division of Allergy and Infectious Diseases where she loves the collaboration, support and interacting with colleagues within the division, department, and hospital.
She said, “It’s an intellectually stimulating environment, where people are interested in brainstorming, helping each other out and working together for the betterment of the patients, hospital, trainees, their colleagues, and the community.”
Patient care
As an ID physician, Ramchandani enjoys how versatile and interdisciplinary the specialty is. She is fascinated by working with different organisms and organ systems and loves interacting with various specialties and a variety of patient populations. She also appreciates the opportunities to get involved in clinical service, education, public health, research, microbiology, national and international initiatives.
“It’s fun, it’s interesting and it’s intellectually stimulating. ID people are a fun and happy group overall. And we have cures for our diagnosis!”
Ramchandani is the Medical Director of the MAX Clinic, a collaboration between the Madison Clinic and Public Health – Seattle & King County HIV/STI/HCV Program to improve engagement in HIV care for patients with complex medical and social needs.
“I love working with the patients and meeting them where they are for their own health goals to engage them in HIV and primary care. Our team is fantastic and make a big difference in our patient’s lives. It's been a successful program with a high number of our patients reaching viral suppression compared to prior entering our clinic.”
Ramchandani was also one of the Medical Directors of the Public Health-Seattle & King County Sexual Health Clinic (SHC) until she began in her new role as Program Director for the UW ID Fellowship Program. The SHC is located on the Harborview campus and is able to support the community in many ways, particularly focusing on programs with regards to HIV, STI and HCV treatment and prevention.
“For example, in the setting of the recent mpox outbreak, the SHC played an important role in the mpox vaccine and treatment scale up for King County residents, providing at least 1 vaccine dose to over 7,000 individuals and 42% of the vaccine doses countywide.”
Education
Ramchandani became the Program Director for the UW ID Fellowship Program about 6 months ago, which she said is an enjoyable and exciting focus of her work right now.
“It’s been wonderful to work closely with the ID fellows, all of which are outstanding and enjoyable to be around and get to know. We have a great fellowship team with support from faculty and the division. The fellows are interested in so many things, are outstanding clinically, have a wide breadth of research experience and activities, love to learn and are all going to make wonderful ID physicians and researchers.”
The UW ID Fellowship Program is among the oldest in the country and is well-known for excellence in training. Ramchandani is passionate about finding ways to continue improving the program and is looking forward to helping to improve well-being, clinical and research training, career support and development, education and mentorship. “It’s a big role and I’m lucky to have great mentorship and support from the previous Program Director, the Associate Program Director, and our Division Head which I’m grateful for,” she said.
Ramchandani is also passionate about facilitating ID education for colleagues nationally as the editor and host of the National STD Curriculum Podcast (funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and supported through the University of Washington STD Prevention Training Center).
Launched in 2020, the podcast shares literature reviews, hot topics, conference summaries, and expert interviews for professionals who are interested in remaining up-to-date on the diagnosis, management, and prevention of STIs. As data shows rates of STIs in the US are increasing, especially syphilis and congenital syphilis, this educational resource will play an important role in increasing the number of providers comfortable with sexual health management.
“We have a fabulous team and have produced over 40 episodes focused on STIs for healthcare providers,” Ramchandani said. “We just did an analysis of our work and have already >30,000 downloads with an audience located in 57 countries.”
Personal interests
In her spare time, Ramchandani loves to travel internationally and tries to go on a trip once a year. She loves to read novels and classic literature, spend time with family and friends and while she used to enjoy the intricate process of baking sourdough bread, she has recently swapped it out for a new relaxing hobby of watercolor painting.