Past Tuesday Talks — The Passion of a Liver Doctor

About Maliha Ahmad, MD

Dr Ahmad's passion for medicine began at a very young age. Growing up she was always fascinated by the art of human anatomy. Having danced all her life, Dr Ahmad had an interest in movement, not only externally but the internal mechanisms. She decided to pursue medical school after high school and completed a 5-year program. Dr Ahmad began my Internal Medicine residency in 2004 and always had a special interest in Immunology. In 2007, Dr Ahmad matched in fellowship for Transplant Hepatology at UMDNJ now known as University Hospital in Newark. She continued her career there as an Assistant Professor of Medicine and Program Director of the Hepatology fellowship. At University she spent tremendous time taking care of extremely ill patients while being sure to educate them and their families. Dr Ahmad worked diligently on clinical trials and giving many lectures to medical students, residents and fellows. In 2015, Dr Ahmad decided to join St. Joseph’s Regional Medical Center to start a comprehensive program with a focus on General Hepatology and early disease recognition. She has a great belief in preventative medicine and thus decided to change her focus having seen the extreme of disease. One of the projects most important to Dr Ahmad was the FOCUS grant where she utilized AI algorithms to diagnosis Hepatitis B and C across the hospital electronic medical records. As a result, she was able to treat thousands of patients with chronic viral disease. At St. Joseph’s Dr Ahmad was honored to work on manuscripts, advisory boards and working on clinical trial protocols. In 2016, Dr Ahmad was granted permission to have the first Fibroscan machine in NJ to use in her clinical practice. This has allowed Dr Ahmad to improve her diagnosis of patients with Fatty Liver Disease and Fibrosis. Having the benefit of working in a community setting Dr Ahmad discovered inequality present in our healthcare system globally for various reasons including gender and socioeconomic disparity. This is ]her main focus, and she has been working on closing this gap and will always remain her long-term goal.

About Seema Kumar