Dr Kalpalatha K Guntupalli of Houston, the only woman president of the American Association of Physicians of Indian origin, has been elected as the first Asian American woman president of the 75-year-old American College of Chest Physicians.
Hyderabad-born Guntupalli is a tenured full professor at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, considered one of the top 10 medical schools in the US, and also chief of pulmonary/critical care and sleep division at BCM.
Guntupalli, who will be inaugurated as ACCP's new president on November 1 in San Diego, told US weekly India Abroad, a part of rediff.com, that her top priority would be to "retain and further strengthen ACCP's role as the premier organisation representing professionals who promote cardiopulmonary health worldwide".
"As an international medical graduate myself, who is very much aware of the excellent education programmes and the tools for public outreach delivered by the ACCP, I want to actualise and realise the concept of 'global family' by increasing our reach to the international community."
With 2010 having been declared 'Year of Lung' by the Forum of International Respiratory Societies, Guntupalli hopes the AACP will take on a leadership role in "contributing to celebrate lung health around the globe".
At the domestic level, her priorities are to make the ACCP the 'one-stop shop' "for education, practice, management, performance improvement and monitoring and the advocacy needs of our membership."
Much of her time will be spent monitoring the nationwide financial crisis and the contentious debate over health care reform, to see how the AACP fits into it. "Of course, in order to do this, I will seek the support and full cooperation of all of our members and new Fellows so that we can also be a player in contributing to re-shaping health care reform policy," Guntupalli said.
She began her education in her native Hyderabad before migrating to the US in 1974 to specialise in internal medicine. She has received numerous awards including the prestigious 'Parker J Palmer Courage to Teach' award for 2007 by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, making her one of just 10 program directors to receive the honour. She has also been honoured with the World Lung Health award by the American Thoracic Society.
Her particular passion is in the field of tobacco control programmes, and over the years she has developed anti-tobacco material in seven languages besides anti-tobacco cartoons for children, inspiring more than 2,00,000 children in India to spread the message about the acute dangers of smoking and tobacco chewing.
One particular educational compact disc titled 'Evils of Tobacco', developed specifically for South Asia and containing a 12-minute video documentary and 186-video augmented power-point slides for medical professionals, has been translated into Telugu, Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu and Gujarati and is in use in dental schools, elementary and high schools all over India and the US.
Guntupalli was also the founding director of SHARE-USA, a non-profit that undertakes several projects in India including outreach, preventive and interventional care in rural areas. She has served on the board of Pratham-USA, a non-governmental organisation that focuses on literacy projects in India for over six years.
Image: (Second from left) Dr Kalpalatha K Guntupalli
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