Banner – University Medical Center Tucson has reopened Unit 5 West as an Intensive Care Unit for neurological patients and recruited neurointensivist Sankalp Gokhale, MD, as the unit’s medical director, effective Oct. 1.
He joins us from the University of Texas Southwestern in Dallas, where he was an assistant professor of neurology and neurotherapeutics and attending neurointensivist at the Zale Lipshy University Hospital and Parkland Hospital.
Dr. Gokhale received his medical degree from the Seth GS Medical College in Mumbai, India, and completed residencies in internal medicine at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi and at Brown University in Providence, R.I. He then completed a neurology residency at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital/Harvard Medical School in Boston and a fellowship in neurocritical care from Duke University Hospital in Durham, N.C. He is certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and holds neurocritical care certification from the United Council for Neurologic Subspecialties.
He has published more than 35 articles in international journals, presented at numerous international meetings and serves as an expert reviewer for top journals in the field of neurocritical care. His translational stroke and acute brain injury research have received funding from the National Institutes of Health and the American Heart Association.
Plans call for a greatly expanded Neuro ICU over the next two years. In addition to serving as the ICU’s medical director and as assistant professor in the UA Departments of Neurology and Anesthesiology, Dr. Gokhale will be the point person for establishing an accredited neuro critical care fellowship training program. He plans to pursue an MBA from the UA Eller College of Management and to initiate several quality-improvement projects in the neuro ICU.
The original article for the above appeared in the Oct. 20 BUMG Wildcat Connection e-newsletter. Click here to see an archive of those newsletters.