From bilingual teacher to emergency medicine specialist

Meet Dr. Sangeeta Sakaria

Dr. Sangeeta Sakaria’s journey began in her home state of Indiana, or as she likes to say “the cornfields”. There she developed interests in human biology and the Spanish language.

After receiving bachelor's degrees in both fields, Sakaria decided to pursue one of her earliest passions — teaching — and worked as a second grade bilingual teacher in New York City's South Bronx. She went on to earn a master’s degree in teaching with a concentration in bilingual elementary education. This training helped her develop the skills she would eventually use to build strong relationships with patients and to empower them with the knowledge to create change in their own lives.

After a few years in the classroom, Sakaria returned to Indiana to start medical school at Indiana University. She was determined to unite her love of teaching with medicine and discovered that the practice of emergency medicine was a perfect field. This was also a significant driving force in pursuing academic medicine. After completing her emergency medicine training at the University of Chicago, she stayed on as faculty member and physician at the affiliated trauma center.

Sakaria decided to move once more to Southern California, where she now serves as an attending physician at UC Irvine Medical Center and faculty member in the School of Medicine's Department of Emergency Medicine. She was recently named a Dean’s Scholar at UC Irvine School of Medicine and teaches the Clinical Foundations course to medical students.

In addition to teaching medical students and residents, her clinical interests include global health. She has a master's degree in public health from Harvard University. Sakaria has participated in several projects funded by PAHO and UNICEF to identify disease processes in underserved communities and then worked with local health providers to implement culturally acceptable solutions.

Sakaria also is an experienced flight physician for helicopter transports involving trauma and critically ill patients, including women in childbirth and neonates. She also is experienced in fixed-wing international transports of stable and critically ill patients.

Her love of the outdoors also has led her to pursue diploma programs in mountain medicine and dive and marine medicine. She recently was named Medical Director of the Emergency Department at Catalina Island Medical Center in Avalon, where she works to provide round-the-clock emergency services to residents and tourists of the island.

Sakaria finds balance in her life in music and dancing. Her name means “song,” so it’s fitting that she enjoys these pursuits. She also loves playing tennis, boxing, scuba diving, sampling different foods, and doing anything that involves the outdoors, such as hiking and camping.

When asked what she sees in her future, Sakaria half-jokingly says she one day hopes to have a farm to raise goats and make goat cheese. Until then, she wants to focus on teaching her residents and medical students to become better teachers themselves so that they too can empower their colleagues and patients.

Sakaria embodies the UC Irvine Health mission: Discover. Teach. Heal. We are eager to see how she strengthens our program and the field of emergency medicine.