By Tracey Drury – Reporter, Buffalo Business First
Jul 18, 2022
As a third-generation doctor, Sucharita “Rita” Paul is carrying on the family history of taking care of others. But she’s taking that work a step further by combining hands-on care with public health efforts.
Paul is an emergency physician with UBMD Emergency Medicine and practices in the emergency department at Buffalo General Medical Center. She also teaches new doctors about public health, global medicine, addiction, gun violence and health and social disparities as a faculty member at the University at Buffalo’s Jacobs School of Medicine & Biomedical Research.
A Buffalo native, Paul’s parents were Indian immigrants who came to Buffalo in the 1960s when her father joined Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center for postdoctoral research work. He retired 10 years ago after a 40-plus year career. Her grandfather – her mother’s father — was a doctor in India. Both inspired Paul's career.
She started at UB, then headed to Rochester for her master’s degree before joining a company in Massachusetts to do gene therapy research into cystic fibrosis. Then she attending medical school in Brooklyn at Downstate Medical School and had her first exposure to emergency medicine.
“That made such a big impact on me and always seemed like the area of greatest need,” she said. “I told myself, if you’re going to go to med school and work this hard, you should use your education to do something and work in an area where they really need you.”
After completing her residency in emergency medicine in Buffalo, she returned to Massachusetts and practiced at a community hospital for 10 years before returning to Buffalo in 2008.
Coming back, she also realized just what she was missing.
“I have this feeling that many people who are from Buffalo, they kind of have to leave Buffalo to appreciate Buffalo that much more,” she said. “I’m one of those people.”
She recently was appointed to the board of the Health Foundation for Western and Central New York, where she hopes to use her expertise in medicine to improve health equity. She has also served on the Covid-19 Working Group of Western New York, the City of Buffalo’s Emergency Medical Services Board, the board of UBMD Emergency Medicine and co-founded a scholarship fund for medical residents interested in international health travel experiences.
About seven years ago, Paul got the itch for change again, loving her work in acute care, but also realizing she wanted to do more on the prevention side. Again, she went back to school for a master’s degree in public health.
She also took the opportunity to travel to India for a public health project related to sanitation, water quality and food quality. And here in Buffalo, she has worked with a group of colleagues to explore how to help vulnerable older adults who come to area emergency rooms. The goal is to identify these individuals earlier to help figure out ways to help them age in place while remaining as healthy as possible.
“For a lot of people, it’s their worst day when they come to the ER,” Paul said. “You don’t want them to have that day. You want to see if you can intervene before so that they stay healthier.”
Dr. Sucharita Paul
Day job: Buffalo General Medical Center/UBMD Emergency Medicine
Community: Health Foundation for Central and Western New York
Self-description: Approachable
What keeps you up at night: “I feel like our society is becoming less and less tolerant of each other’s differences. It’s harder to have a conversation.”
Who is your mentor: My parents, Brajeswar and Nilima Paul