Anitha Srinivasan
Anitha Srinivasan, MD MPH
Deputy Chief Medical Officer
NYC Health + Hospitals/Metropolitan
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Dedication That Goes Beyond Medicine
Dr. Anitha Srinivasan is a career surgeon at NYC Health + Hospitals/Metropolitan, founding director of its nationally accredited Breast Cancer Center and the hospital’s deputy chief medical officer since 2019. She’s a teacher, researcher, public health expert and innovator. Under her leadership, the East Harlem hospital has performed more than 500 robotic surgeries.
But of all her experiences across more than 20 years serving New York City’s public hospital system, perhaps none is more memorable or emblematic to her than the time an immigrant from Mali came to the hospital pregnant with her third child and with cancer in both her breasts. Dr. Srinivasan coordinated with the obstetrics team to deliver the baby and performed surgery immediately afterward. But it isn’t only the medical care she’s still proud of 15 years later.
“The patient and her husband needed her mother as a caregiver,” she recalls. “But her mother’s visa was denied based on a claim that the cancer diagnosis was false.”
Dr. Srinivasan’s team contacted the U.S. embassy in Mali and she explained the situation. The visa was granted and the patient and her mother later visited the hospital to thank the team for all they had done. “Her baby is now a thriving high schooler and continues to receive care at our hospital.”
Dr. Srinivasan grew up the daughter of two doctors in India, where her mother devoted her long career to working and teaching in the public hospital system. “I was inspired by the satisfaction she derived from caring for indigent patients and performing challenging surgeries,” she says.
“One of my mentors once said, ‘Medicine is a great field if you don’t have to worry about the money behind it,’ Dr. Srinivasan said. “As a health administrator, the challenge is to create a fiscally self-sustaining health facility while ensuring no one is refused care. Treating a patient, regardless of their ability to pay or who they are, remains one of the few ethical victories in healthcare, and I’m proud to be part of it every day.”