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Member Spotlight: Aarti Sarwal, MD, FAAN, FNCS, FCCM

By Amy Kuyken posted 12-06-2021 09:00

  


Aarti Sarwal, MD, FAAN, FNCS, FCCM, is a neurologist at Wake Forest Baptist Health Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA. She is the Social Media Editor of Critical Care Medicine, the official peer-reviewed journal of the Society of Critical Care Medicine. Her clinical interests include neurology, professional development, research, and ultrasound, and she unwinds in her free time by dancing and working out. Get to know Dr. Sarwal as she shares her thoughts on critical care and provides some advice for those entering the field.

Why do you love being in critical care? Critical care allows us to make a difference, day in and day out. We are there for our patients and their families during their most stressful times.

 

What do you see as the most challenging issue facing critical care? Creating a new normal—one that’s patient-centric and supports a sustainable, energized workforce.

 

What advice do you have for those starting their critical care careers? LISTEN, LISTEN, and LISTEN. Patients, families, nurses, and trainees will tell you what you need to know. Take care of yourself with as much diligence as you take care of your patients and vice versa.

 

How did you get into critical care? Critical care felt like the right calling for me. The ability to help people and their families through the most difficult times of their lives just felt like where I belonged. I also had some great mentors who informed the career path where I could serve our patients the best.

 

What is your biggest professional achievement? I like to say it’s a work in progress, but I take the most pride in getting people excited about the brain using neuro-ultrasound.

 

What are the top advances in critical care since you started your career? Point-of-care ultrasound will change our understanding of pathophysiology in many ways in critical care. But most importantly, it will bring physicians back to the patient’s bedside.

 

What industry trends have you excited about the future? The use of clinical informatics to minimize unnecessary documentation burden for the clinical workforce so they can spend more time with patients and their families. Technology and data analytics will allow for efficient and informed multimodality monitoring that incorporates patient and family experience metrics, providing a holistic input for daily rounding and interventions.

 

What do you love about SCCM membership? The multidisciplinary collaboration in bringing together the best of clinical medicine, education, research, and innovation.

Connect with @Aarti Sarwal on SCCM or on Twitter @aartisarwal

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