Niagara MD graduate wants to make big impact at home

Sarah Chaudhry is a Niagara native. It’s where she grew up and attended medical school, and soon she will practice there as a family physician.

Originally from Fonthill, Chaudhry will graduate from the Niagara Regional Campus of McMaster’s Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine on Friday.

A total of 475 graduates from midwifery, physician assistant, Bachelor of Health Sciences and several specialty diplomas and graduate degrees will also cross the Hamilton Place stage at the 2:30 p.m. ceremony.

“The Niagara campus is great because there’s a very strong sense of community and I felt completely supported by my preceptors, the staff and my peers,” said Chaudhry.

“It’s a small campus. There were only 28 of us so you really got to know each and every one of your peers, which made medical school a lot of fun. There were also so many opportunities to learn whatever you wanted to learn because there weren’t a lot of other learners.”

Chaudhry earned her undergraduate degree in biology from Niagara University in Lewiston, New York. She chose to go into medicine in large part because her mother is an obstetrician.

“I grew up seeing how much my mom loves practicing medicine, how rewarding her career as a physician is, and how much you can really affect your community at a grassroots level,” said Chaudhry. “And, I’ve always wanted a career where I could help people in my own way, so medicine just seemed like the right fit for me.”

She will soon start her residency based with the Welland McMaster Family Health Team.

Family medicine appealed to her because she likes that she’ll get to support her patient’s health care needs in the long term, and she appreciates a holistic, biopsychosocial approach to care.

“I like the idea of taking care of people throughout the course of their lives and helping them to navigate the health care system,” said Chaudhry. “On top that, in family medicine you get to prevent people from getting sick through regular health promotion in your practice, which is something that I’m passionate about.”

As part of her medical training she completed a palliative care elective with the South Niagara Palliative Shared Care Team.

“Every patient visit was in the home, and it was really a privilege to be able to help those people who were in the end stages of their lives. Doing home visits really helps the clinician understand so much more about their patients and how to support them,” said Chaudhry. “So, that’s something that I’d like to do in the future.”

Chaudhry recently received the Greater Niagara Medical Staff Association Scholarship in recognition of her commitment to furthering her medical career in Niagara.

She plans to use the $1,000 scholarship money to build her own portable medical kit to assess patients during palliative care home visits.