Dr Vineet Arora on Why She Nominated Dr Ishani Ganguli for the Seema S. Sonnad Emerging Leader in Managed Care Research Award

Vineet Arora, MD, MAPP, dean for medical education at UChicago Medicine, discusses the qualities that led her to nominate Ishani Ganguli, MD, MPH, to receive the Seema S. Sonnad Emerging Leader in Managed Care Research Award. The American Journal of Managed Care® presented the 2022 award to Dr Ganguli at the 2022 Patient-Centered Oncology Care® meeting.

Transcript

I am so thrilled to have nominated Dr [Ishani] Ganguli for this wonderful award, because I just really appreciate how pathbreaking and pioneering her work has been. Not just in things like cascades and how to make sure that patients and the public are getting the most out of their health care and not getting unintended consequences from downstream cascades, which is a beautiful line of work, but also really pushing the envelope on things like gender equity, and the intersection between equity and alternative payment models, and the idea that just because something is shiny and new and a new way of care or care delivery or a way of paying for it, we still have to think about equity, not just for patients, but also for providers.

Another reason that I am super thrilled that Dr Ganguli is getting this award is that, you know, we’ve all been through a very tough time during the pandemic, and it’s been especially tough for those of us that have small children at home and are balancing a lot of different things. And so to me, as somebody who is also a mom to small children, who has worked with and collaborates with Dr Ganguli, I have really just found it to be so pleasurable to always interact with her and really think about how to make things better, not just for our patients, but also for the people doing the research, doing the clinical work. And that’s what I really appreciated about Dr Ganguli is her critical mind and also telling that story for the public.

One of the most amazing things about Dr Ganguli is her ability to write, and that’s when we first met, as she was doing a lot of writing about her own medical education experience. I think it's been amazing to watch her integrate that passion for writing for the public and science communication with op-eds in The Washington Post about her research so that more people can take advantage of something that they might not see in a journal, but that they could understand, "Well, this is why it’s important that I talk to my doctor about high-value care."