Researcher Spotlight: Varun Phadke

What is your professional background?
I am an infectious diseases physician and clinician-educator, with interests in immunocompromised hosts and vaccines. I was born in India, lived in the UK until age ninr, then moved to upstate NY where I grew up. I went to college at Princeton University, then attended Harvard Medical School, followed by a residency in internal medicine at Columbia University Medical Center in New York. After a year of hospital medicine at the University of Michigan, I completed my fellowship in infectious diseases at Emory before joining the faculty in 2017. I have educational roles in the fellowship program and School of Medicine. My clinical activities encompass both general and transplant infectious diseases, and I am also a sub-investigator in the Emory Vaccine and Treatment Evaluation Unit.

In what division do you work, and who is your mentor?
I am an assistant professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases. As an educator, I look to many people for mentorship to keep pushing me to innovate – this includes peer faculty like Jennifer Spicer and Meredith Lora, my fellowship program director, Wendy Armstrong, as well as collaborators outside Emory. 

Briefly describe your research. Why is it important?
As an educator, my primary interest is in characterizing how to best teach, assess, and maintain clinical reasoning skills. Clinical reasoning describes the cognitive and non-cognitive processes that clinicians use to gather and interpret data to make diagnoses and management decisions. It is a core skill for every clinician, no matter their specialty, but is not taught explicitly in most undergraduate or graduate medical education curricula. Effective tools to teach or assess clinical reasoning skills remain limited, as do mechanisms to foster and maintain excellence in reasoning for seasoned clinicians. I am especially interested in describing ways to teach and assess management reasoning, including the cognitive biases that influence medical decision-making.

What do you like most about Emory?
The people. As a trainee and now a faculty member, I’ve been lucky to get to know many brilliant – yet humble – colleagues and friends. 

What is your favorite movie or TV show?
‘The Great British Baking Show.’

What do you like to do in your spare time?
I enjoy cooking and trying new foods and spending time with my wife and two-year-old son.

What is a fun fact about you?
I enjoy making and completing scavenger hunts – that is how I proposed to my wife!