When she was applying to medical schools, Vaishnavi Krishnan had a pretty good idea what her career in medicine would look like. The Michigan native had already done some public health and policy research as an undergrad at the University of Michigan and a post-grad gap year as research coordinator at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine.
I hope to dedicate my career to working towards identifying and alleviating the upstream drivers of cardiometabolic health disparities across the population.
Vaishnavi Krishnan
“My interest in medicine was driven by a passion for equitable disease prevention in my community. I hope to not only serve as a clinician but also address the non-medical factors that impact the health of my patients and improve the health of my community through research and advocacy,” said Krishnan, a second-year medical student.
Upon entering the Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, she applied to the research track in Learn, Experience, Advocate, Discover, and Serve (LEADS) curriculum. That came with dedicated research time under a faculty mentor and seven to eight weeks in the Medical Student Summer Research Program (MSSRP) .
Krishnan is already listed as a lead author on several published studies, and she plans to pursue a career in preventive medicine.
“I’m passionate about cardiovascular disease prevention because many risk factors like obesity, diabetes and hypertension are projected to increase significantly over the next several decades; and younger adults represent a growing proportion of CVD morbidity and mortality.” she said. “There is a need for preventive efforts to begin earlier in life, with a focus on the upstream social and structural drivers of health inequities.”
Krishnan’s research with Donald Lloyd-Jones , MD, professor of preventive medicine & epidemiology and director of the Framingham Heart Study , is focused on population-level trends in cardiovascular health and exploring the novel cardiovascular-kidney-metabolic syndrome construct, particularly during young adulthood.
“I hope to dedicate my career to working towards identifying and alleviating the upstream drivers of cardiometabolic health disparities across the population,” Krishnan said.