Associate Junior Faculty Scholars

Sachin Shah, MD, provides comprehensive primary care to adults and children of all ages in both inpatient and outpatient settings. He also has an active interest in global health.

Dr. Shah is working to improve meaningful use of electronic health records. He hopes that this work will lead to improved communication between physicians and patients, and better outcomes in the medical management of chronic disease.

Committed to teaching medical students and residents, Dr. Shah serves as the Associate Director for Education in the Med-Peds Residency Program. He works closely with trainees, emphasizing the foundations of clinical medicine, clinical reasoning, and the role of humanities in medicine.

Dr. Kahn is Assistant Professor of Pediatrics in the Section of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, & Nutrition and is faculty at The MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics. She received her medical degree from New York University School of Medicine and completed her residency and fellowships in pediatric gastroenterology and medical ethics at the University of Chicago.

Dr. Kahn specializes in the evaluation and treatment of digestive diseases in children and adolescents. She has a particular interest in inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), including Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. Dr. Kahn is the founder and Director of the Transitional IBD Clinic, a unique program that provides multidisciplinary specialty care for teens and young adults with IBD. Dr. Kahn’s research focuses on novel treatments for IBD and improving patient care for patients with IBD. Specifically, she is interested on adherence, self-management, and the transition of care from pediatric to adult IBD specialists.

Dr. Kahn is a member of the faulty at Boston Children’s Hospital in Massachusetts.

Dr. Kiragu is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Section of General Internal Medicine. He received his medical training at Northwestern University and was a medicine resident and chief resident at The University of Chicago at NorthShore. He provides comprehensive primary care to adults and is passionate about preventive health. He currently sits on the committee of the Kidney Transplant Program and provides both evaluation and care for the transplant candidates. He is also interested in systems improvements by identifying factors predictive of poor outcomes among kidney transplant patients. Dr. Kiragu is also involved in training medicine residents and medical students.

In 2015, Dr. Kiragu joined Wilson Medical Group in Wilson, NC.

Dr. Pinto is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Director of the Comprehensive Solid Tumor Clinic at the University of Chicago and a member of the Committee on Clinical Pharmacology and Pharmacogenomics. Dr. Pinto’s research focuses on the role of genetic variation in ethnic disparities and responsiveness to chemotherapy. Dr. Pinto directs the GREAT KIDS research program, an effort to comprehensively sequence the genomes of patients with newly diagnosed or relapsed pediatric cancer in order to gain a broader understanding of gene-environment interactions as well as actionable genetic alterations. Future research goals include improving communication of complex genetic traits and inheritance to patients and families affected by cancer.

Dr. Pinto is a physician at the Seattle Children’s Hospital in Seattle, WA.

Dr. Sharma is a medical oncologist and clinical pharmacologist who focuses on the development of novel therapies for patients with all types of cancer, and gastrointestinal cancers in particular. His research involves computer-based modeling and simulation using data (including patient-reported outcomes) from oncology clinical trials. The broad objective of this research is to improve the development (by informing clinical trial design) and use of anticancer therapies. He has designed and conducted clinical trials that involve genotype-guided dosing of chemotherapy and repurposing of old drugs (such as sirolimus and metformin) as potential anticancer therapies. He is also using model-based phenotypes to develop genomic prediction tools for response to anticancer therapies. In an educational capacity, Dr. Sharma has an interest in improving doctor-patient communication with respect to informed consent for phase I cancer clinical trials.

Dr. Sharma is now a physician at the Cancer and Hematology Centers of Western Michigan.

Robert Steppacher, MD FACS and assistant professor in the Department of Surgery. Dr. Steppacher specializes in the medical, surgical, and endovascular management of aortic, carotid, and peripheral vascular disease. His interests also include treatment of venous disease and dialysis access. In addition to his clinical pursuits, Dr. Steppacher is also a Medical Director of Informatics at the University of Chicago. He has extensive expertise and interest in improving the electronic health record at UCM. Dr. Steppacher serves on numerous committees and taskforces at the local, regional, and national level. He is the director of arterial quality for the Mid-America Vascular Study Group and the chair of the medication optimization and EHR integration committees for the Society for Vascular Surgery. Dr. Steppacher research interests include using large data sets to foster improvement in vascular care and increasing the usability of the EHR.

In 2016, Dr. Steppacher joined the faculty at the University of Massachusetts Memorial Medical Center in Worcester.

Sarah Collins, MD, is a specialist in urogynecology. In the Center for Pelvic Health, Dr. Collins works with a multidisciplinary team of experts dedicated to helping patients overcome physical, social and emotional challenges associated with pelvic floor disorders.

Dr. Collins is skilled in open, robotic, laparoscopic, and vaginal surgical techniques. In her research studies, she has investigated ways in which treatment for pelvic floor disorders affect quality of life.

2013 Pilot Grant Project: Predictors of satisfaction with surgical decision-making in elderly women undergoing gynecologic surgery

As of 2016, Dr. Collins joined the faculty at Northwestern University in Chicago, IL.

Jonathan Emerson Kohler, MD MA is the senior fellow in pediatric surgery at the University of Chicago. Dr. Kohler holds degrees with honors from Brown University, where he studied biology and theatre, and from the Pritzker School of Medicine at the University of Chicago, as well as a masters degree in health communications from Emerson College. Prior to medical school, he worked in theatre and as a health care reporter for the daily Standard-Times in New Bedford, MA. His research interests include the effect of patient and parent expectations on outcomes in pediatric surgery, and on the role of mass media in forming and modulating those expectations. Projects include production of several patient and parent education programs for the University of Chicago, University of Washington, and Boston Children’s Hospital, and development of several medical drama pilots for network television with Imagine Television and CBS Studios. He is the founder of the medical narrative consulting company RxCreative, which helps produce accurate medicine on television, and helps doctors use narrative techniques to teach their patients. He completed his general surgery training at the University of Washington.

Dr. Kohler is a member of the faculty at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

Pamela McShane, MD, is a skilled lung specialist with particular expertise in the treatment and study of bronchiectasis.Dr. McShane’s research interests include the origin, microbiology, and treatment of bronchiectasis. She developed a large registry of patients who have bronchiectasis in order to learn more about the natural history of this disease, and to provide opportunities for patients to participate in research trials. Dr. McShane is also investigating the roles of individual factors — such as immune deficiency, autoimmunity, and ethnicity — in the cause and natural history of bronchiectasis.

In 2019, Dr. McShane joined the faculty at the University of Texas Health East Texas in Tyler, TX.

Yasmin Sacro is an outstanding junior clinician-educator who’s been named as a Core Faculty member for the University of Chicago Internal Medicine residency program, based on her superior clinical skills and teaching abilities. She sees a high volume of adult primary care patients and is known by patients as an outstanding clinician. Yasmin teaches residents in the Primary Care Group and also at Community Health — the community-based free clinic, where she’s taking the lead on developing curriculum for residents about providing care in this underserved and very challenging setting.

As of 2015, Dr. Sacro is a physician at Denver Health in Colorado.