Sarada “Soumya” Panchanathan did her medical training at University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario in Canada, and then completed a rotating internship at Scarborough General Hospital, Toronto and pediatric residency at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) in Ottawa, Canada. She continued as an attending pediatrician at CHEO after graduation.
She moved to Arizona in 1997 and joined a private practice. At this private practice, she was able to observe the many differences between the health systems in Canada and the US. After eight years in private practice, she returned to college to study Biomedical Informatics at ASU and then joined the faculty at Valleywise Medical Center in the pediatric ambulatory clinic. While working and teaching clinically at Valleywise, she taught biomedical informatics at both Arizona State University and University of Arizona College of Medicine-Phoenix (UACOM-Phx). In 2012, she became the Theme Director of Biomedical Informatics at UACOM-Phx and Associate Program Director for the combined Phoenix Children’s Hospital/Valleywise Medical Center pediatric residency program. In 2014, she assisted in the design and implementation of the University of Arizona Clinical Informatics Fellowship and then became Associate Fellowship Director when it started. In 2015, she also became Co-director of Evidence-based Medicine at UACOM-Phx.
When her husband was appointed to be director of the National Science Foundation, Soumya moved to Washington, DC and joined the FDA in the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. She was a medical reviewer in the pharmacovigilance unit and reviewed postmarketing studies as well as individual reports of adverse events of biologic products. The main product in her portfolio was the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine.
Soumya now returns to ASU, excited to participate in creating this new medical school curriculum.