Personal Statement

Hello! I’m Rathika and I grew up in Gainesville, Florida! (Go Gators!) After growing up in the south, I decided to freeze and attended college at Wellesley College. After graduating, I spent a year studying parasites (Chagas’ disease and cysticercosis) in Lima, Peru and another year working with C. elegans (a tiny worm) at the University of Florida before starting medical school at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.

I became interested in Family Medicine after spending a summer interning at Clinica de Familia La Romana (CFLR), a family, HIV, and sex worker clinic in the Dominican Republic. I then spent a year as an international research fellow at CFLR developing a study to determine the impact of expedited viral load test analysis on the ability for HIV-positive women to have vaginal deliveries!

In my off-work time, I love hanging out and hiking with my husband, reading novels, baking, and watching my cats act ridiculous.

Areas of Interest

Women’s reproductive health, underserved care-LGBT, minority, refugee/migrant, and prisoner health