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Dr. Striker discusses anesthesia in low- and middle-income countries with Drs. Lalitha Sundararaman and Muhammad Rafique, coauthors of the guest editorial in the special section of the ASA Monitor’s October issue. Listen in as guests share their personal experiences of practicing abroad, delve into specific challenges, consider the role of partnerships and research, and shine light on the path forward. Recorded September 2021.
Lalitha Sundararaman, MD, is a board-certified anesthesiologist and pain specialist. Dr. Sundararaman is a member of several ASA Committees, an editor for the ASA Monitor, and a published Tamil poet. She is also the founder and co-director of the Prana Holistic Foundation in India, committed to combining allopathic, ayurvedic, and acupuncture techniques for women’s health, pain management, and wellness.
Dr. Sundararaman has won several awards including “best academic achievement in residency” and an “accomplished emerging faculty” award in India. Trained as an anesthesiologist in both India and the U.S., she has a global perspective on anesthesia care. Her ideal world would be one with no inequities of health care and access for all. She is especially interested in anesthesia for newer innovative procedures outside the OR.
Muhammad B. Rafique, MD, is an associate professor at Loyola University Medical Center just outside of Chicago, Illinois. His areas of clinical interest are pediatric anesthesia and pediatric cardiovascular anesthesia.
After finishing medical school in Lahore, Pakistan, Dr. Rafique travelled to the U.S. where he interned at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and then moved to Boston, Massachusetts, for his residency. He then completed a one-year fellowship in pediatric anesthesia at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, joined the faculty at the University of Oklahoma as an assistant professor, and later joined the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston as an associate professor and consultant pediatric cardiac anesthesiologist. Dr. Rafique has been married to his wife Chanda Babur for almost 16 years and they have three children aged 10, 8, and 7.
Adam Striker, MD, FASA, is currently Chair of the ASA Committee on Communications, and is the series editor for ASA’s Central Line podcast series. He is an Associate Professor and serves as staff anesthesiologist in the Division of Cardiac Anesthesia at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and in the Division of Pediatric Anesthesia at Kentucky Children’s Hospital as part of the Joint Congenital Heart Care Program. He received his undergraduate degree in engineering from Purdue University and his medical degree from Indiana University. He completed his pediatric anesthesiology fellowship at Northwestern University.
