About Lakshmi.
She is a physician, cultural historian of medicine, and Founding Director of Medical Humanities at Georgetown University.
Lakshmi’s research focuses on diagnosis and clinical reasoning, especially diagnostic health disparities. She is writing a book for Johns Hopkins University Press, The Doctor and the Detective: A Cultural History of Diagnosis. Her work grapples with these questions: how do doctors think and what stories do they tell about themselves? What happens to the diagnostic process in the face of new technologies? How do we address diagnostic error and bias, which harm thousands of patients each year?
Lakshmi is passionate about connecting health and the humanities and applying this framework to clinical and public health issues, including the COVID-19 pandemic. Her innovation in the medical humanities has resulted in numerous research publications, grants, and international recognition including a U.S. Rhodes Scholarship, The Isis Poetry Prize (given by Oxford’s oldest literary magazine), and a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship. Lakshmi has won awards from the Academy of Communication in Healthcare and the Association of American Medical Colleges, and appeared on media such as Voice of America, Science News, and The History Channel.
Lakshmi earned her DPhil (PhD) in English Literature from the University of Oxford, MD from The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and completed an Internal Medicine residency at Duke before returning to Johns Hopkins for fellowship in General Internal Medicine and History of Medicine. Since 2020, she has been on faculty at Georgetown where she founded and directs the university’s Medical Humanities Initiative.
Lakshmi was born in Bombay, India, and is a proud “Mumbaikar” and immigrant. Her childhood was spent in England and most of my young adulthood in the Southern United States. She adores all things theatre, swimming, curating playlists, and weekly trips to the DC public library.
Awards
National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, 2022
Academy of Communication in Healthcare Humanities and Social Sciences Award, 2019
Hugh Hawkins Fellowship, Johns Hopkins University, 2018
Stead Research Grant Award, Duke University, 2015
Samuel Novey Prize, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 2014
Miller-Coulson Academy of Clinical Excellence, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 2014
Dean’s Scholarship and Sellard’s Scholarship for Research, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 2010
The Isis Prize for Poetry, conferred by Oxford’s oldest literary magazine, 2007
Rhodes Scholarship, 2006