Latha Sivaprasad to receive School of Medicine Alumni Achievement Award
For Latha Sivaprasad (M.D. ’99), there was no question about becoming a doctor.
“My thoughtful father was a physician and always brought this sort of grand intellectual nobility to the field.”
This, Sivaprasad says, is what helped draw her to the profession, naturally and without any reservations. She attended UMKC’s six-year medical program and, despite the rigors of the accelerated program, simultaneously played on the UMKC women’s tennis team.
The 2017 UMKC School of Medicine Alumni Achievement Award winner, Sivaprasad is an expert in safety, quality and streamlining healthcare delivery. Her career has taken her to some of the nation’s top hospitals, including Mount Sinai Beth Israel Medical Center (BIMC) in New York City, where she completed the Don Hoskins Fellowship in Quality and Patient Safety.
While serving as medical director for quality and safety at BIMC, she led a team of physician leaders in developing and implementing leading-edge surgical initiatives to increase patient safety from pre-op to post-operative care.
She has received numerous awards for quality outcomes, and in 2014, she was recognized as one of 25 healthcare leaders under 40 by Becker’s Hospital Review.
Today, Sivaprasad works as senior vice president and chief medical officer at Rhode Island Hospital/Hasbro Children’s Hospital where she is responsible for graduate medical education, staff affairs and enhancing health care delivery at the hospital. This 750-bed organization has an annual operating revenue of $1 billion.
In addition to her responsibilities at the hospital, Sivaprasad also teaches at the Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University. Teaching is of great meaning to her, she says, and adds that she appreciates the expertise she can draw from several generations in the workforce. In 2012, Sivaprasad was inducted into the UMKC School of Medicine’s chapter of the Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society, which recognizes high educational achievement and gifted teaching, while encouraging the development of leaders in academia and the community.
“The sustainability and quality of healthcare depends on our future physicians,” she says.
Each year, the UMKC Alumni Association recognizes 16 alumni and one family with top honors. UMKC will honor Sivaprasad and other outstanding alumni at the 2017 Alumni Awards Luncheon April 20 at Swinney Recreation Center. The luncheon is one of the university’s largest events and proceeds support student scholarships. Last year’s luncheon attracted more than 500 attendees and garnered more than $120,000 in scholarship funds.
Click here for tickets or sponsorship information for the April 20, 2017, Alumni Awards Luncheon.
Click here for more information on the 2017 Alumni Awards recipients.