Faculty Profiles in Excellence

Stanford Medicine faculty are at the cutting edge of patient care, research, and education.
Who are these amazing individuals and what do they do at Stanford?


At Stanford, I like the diverse atmosphere: I have found many opportunities to pursue interests I didn’t even know I had. In that sense, it’s been a very empowering and liberating experience for me. 

Sumit Bhargava, MD

Pediatrics – Pulmonary Medicine

I am a pediatric pulmonary and sleep medicine doctor. The majority of my work is clinical, but I spend part of my time as an educator for care at the School of Medicine. I help to teach the Practice of Medicine course and help mentor and guide medical students through their journey at our school.

Initially, I came to this country to pursue pediatric training. At first, I thought I would complete my training, go back to Delhi, and do pediatrics. When I was going through my pediatric training, however, I was exposed to specialty rotations, and I realized that I was very attracted to being a pediatric specialist. I went to the children’s hospital in St. Louis and did a pulmonary elective there. That’s how I stumbled on pediatric pulmonology.

Later, I went back to Delhi for two-and-a-half years and I was doing totally different work. I spent a year as a research officer on a World Health Organization research project looking at the efficacy of zinc in treating acute diarrhea. Next, I worked in pulmonary medicine at a large hospital that served the poor.

When I returned to the states, I held a faculty position at a comparable institution on the East Coast for eight years, working on a pediatric sleep program. Now, it’s been four years at Stanford following my bliss. Here, there exists an atmosphere that everything is possible. You see people do a lot with very little just because they have the brains and the will and the access to resources.

At Stanford, I like the diverse atmosphere: I have found many opportunities to pursue interests I didn’t even know I had. In that sense, it’s been a very empowering and liberating experience for me. I also appreciate that there are so many different people from all over the world—it was a shock and a pleasant surprise. Here, there are people like me, and that’s a great feeling. I left home when I was eighteen, and people ask me, “Where are you from?” Since I have gone to many different places, I never knew how to answer that. Now, I am from Palo Alto—that’s a big deal.