About Sowmya Kanikkannan

Sowmya Kanikkannan, MD, FACP, SFHM is a practicing hospitalist and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Albany Medical College in Albany, NY. She is a former hospitalist medical director and has served on SHM’s national committees and the editorial board of The Hospitalist Magazine. She is a certified Lean Six Sigma black belt and MBA candidate. She has a special interest in healthcare leadership and the impact of business on the practice of medicine. Outside the hospital, Dr. Kanikkannan enjoys spending time with her family, writing, photography, and hiking the beautiful mountains of Upstate NY. She lives in the city of Albany with her husband and her daughter. She can be found on twitter @skanikkannan.
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How Can Hospitalists Change the Status Quo? Lean Framework for Efficiency and Empathy of Care
November 12, 2020 |  1
“My census is too high.” “I don’t have enough time to talk to patients.” “These are outside our scope of practice.” These are statements that I have heard from colleagues over the last fourteen years as a hospitalist. Back in 1996, when Dr. Bob Wachter coined the term ‘hospitalist,’ we were still in our infancy […]
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Medicine and the Meritocracy: Systemic Bias, Gender Inequity and Discrimination as Barriers to Achievement in the Physician Workforce
August 13, 2020 |  3
There are many challenges facing modern medicine today. Recent events have highlighted important issues affecting our society as a whole– systemic racism, sexism, and implicit bias. In medicine, we have seen a renewed focus on health equity, health disparities and the implicit systemic bias that affect those who work in the field. It is truly […]
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Economy or Humanity? Thoughts on How the Pandemic will Impact the Healthcare Industry
April 15, 2020 |  1
Not enough ventilators, a profound lack of personal protective equipment (PPE) and overwhelmed healthcare professionals. Hospitals and systems stretched beyond capacity in the hardest hit states. Routine care ground to a halt. COVID-19 has pushed the US healthcare system to its limit and exposed its fragility. It’s not a big secret that the US healthcare […]
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