Biography

Dr Sandhu obtained his medical degree from Gandhi Medical College, India and then worked at the Division of Nephrology at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, Boston MA. He subsequently moved to the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Presbyterian hospital for his Internal Medicine residency. Dr Sandhu’s research interests include social factors effecting access to renal transplantation and establishing preferred modality of dialysis access. In addition, Dr Sandhu’s group at the Harvard Medical School developed the Social Adaptability Index (SAI), used to accurately identify patients at higher risk to suffer from health care disparities. Through several key publications, they have shown that index is valid across different subsets of populations like patients with end stage renal disease, chronic kidney disease, diabetes, in addition to the general population. Dr Sandhu’s also showed that patients who were married or divorced had a higher likelihood of getting wait-listed for transplant and eventually getting a transplant, compared to unmarried patients. In addition, Dr Sandhu showed that education can alleviate, at least partially, some of the disparities experienced by minority ethnic groups. These findings have had significant implications on allocation policies used by various transplant programs across the country.