Bio
Dr. Laleh Gharahbaghian was born in Iran, came to the United States at the young age of 3 years, and grew up in San Diego where she became an avid beachgoer and body surfer. In her teens, she volunteered at various community organizations, including the AIDS Foundation and San Diego's Youth and Community Services, due to her commitment in giving back to the community where not many would tread. Although she was an advocate for social determinants of health at UCSD, it was while working in 911 dispatch and with paramedics as an EMT before entering medical school where her interest in emergency medicine flourished. She was witness to the human impact of the gaps in complex insurance coverage, public health policies, and systems of care. She is determined to continue healthcare advocacy for all people, especially our vulnerable populations, and to be the voice for those who need one the most.
She is an academic emergency physician who completed her medical school, residency, and chief resident year at UC Irvine and Emergency Ultrasound fellowship at Stanford. She stayed to be Director of Emergency Ultrasound program, then served as Medical Director for Adult Emergency Medicine, and now as Process Improvement Director. Her interests include clinical operations, human factors engineering, quality improvement, resident education, point of care ultrasound in medical education and emergency care, and case-based learning for ultrasound interpretation and integration.
Her research involves the study of professionalism on patient/provider care, high quality care advocacy, various point-of-care ultrasound applications in the management of critical patients, in the screening of trauma patients, and medical education through simulation models.
She is a leader in the growing national point of care ultrasound educational mission, and leads several very successful educational innovations in emergency ultrasound, including her internationally-known blog, SonoSpot.com, and being the first to create an online case-based ultrasound-focused educational game in SonoDocGame.com. Due to her belief that adding ultrasound can enhance learning of the human body and disease while quickening diagnoses and life-saving interventions, she has gone from co-directing UltraFest, a free national medical student ultrasound symposium at Stanford, to traveling across the country and internationally to lecture on ultrasound integration into emergency practice at various developed and underdeveloped countries. She continues to instruct at several successful national CME ultrasound workshops, and was co-editor of the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) Ultrasound newsletter. She now serves on the Board for their Clinical Ultrasound Accreditation Program.
Her most recent academic focus involves clinical operations and process improvement, case review workflows for optimal patient safety strategies and the impact of professionalism and communication on patient care. She is a Stanford HealthCare committee member for the Stanford Committee of Professionalism and Care Improvement Committee and the Co-Chair of the emergency medicine Case Review Committee. These educational efforts and her supervisory role in the emergency department have resulted in many faculty teaching awards, including the 2023 SHC Med Staff Award for Quality and Patient Safety Award.
She continues to work clinically in the emergency department to care for her patients, to be an advocate for social health, ensuring the highest quality of care, and provides system improvements such that all patients and their family members feel assured that they are in good hands.
