​USMLESarthi Panel to help you Match in USMLE Residency

Our team consists of top physicians (former IMGs and AMGs), former program coordinators, journalists and MBAs. They are intimately familiar with the US Residency Match process and the determinants of a successful Match. Here are some of our panel members.
Dr. Sailaja Pisipati, MD, FRCS (Urol)
Dr. Sailaja Pisipati, MD, FRCS (Urol) is an enthusiastic trainee and a trainer. After graduating from NTRUHS, Andhra Pradesh, India, she completed Urology residency in the United Kingdom, and is board certified from the Royal College of Surgeons of England, UK. With an intense commitment and passion for the profession and by leveraging her unique skills acquired from her prior research and clinical experience, she is completing Internal Medicine Residency at the University of Nevada, Reno, and will soon be embarking on Fellowship journey in Gastroenterology at Mayo Clinic, Arizona. With her diverse experience in both surgical and medical specialties in the UK and the US, Dr. Pisipati is an added asset to our team and is very enthusiastic about helping students cope with challenging situations through the match process and guiding future match aspirants, especially those considering switching specialties or pursuing surgical specialties and students with prior home country residency.
Dr. ​Ravali Veeramachaneni, MD
is a vibrant young physician who graduated from NTRUHS, Andhra Pradesh, India. She started her journey in 2014 and developed a stellar CV. She laid out the specific stepping stones needed to match into residency. Her hard work and determination led to achieving her goals. She is now an intern in the department of Internal Medicine at Rosalind Franklin University, North Chicago. Dr. Ravali is immensely excited to help aspiring applicants and pass down the knowledge from the experience she has gained along her journey.
Dr. Lulua Bahrainwala M.D
is an international graduate from MVP Samaj Dr Vasantrao Pawar Medical College, Nashik, India and a M.S in Global Health from University of California, San Francisco. After graduating in 2012, she worked hard gaining valuable clinical, research, entrepreneurial and volunteering experiences in USA and Canada. Passionate about serving the urban underserved population and cross-cultural medicine, she matched into Citrus Valley Health Partners Family Medicine residency program in West Covina, California. Coaching the next generation of applicants to pass the torch along is the next challenge on her plate
Dr. Alan Stupnitsky, M.D
is a dedicated and hardworking graduate from Chicago Medical School. He completed his Internship at Montefiore Medical Center – Wakefield Campus. Currently, he is a Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation resident at Washington University in St. Louis. Dr. Stupnitsky’s experience at Montefiore, a predominantly IMG-based program, allowed him to understand the application and match process for international students seeking to complete a residency in the United States. As a recent applicant himself, he is able to provide thoughtful and current information and wisdom about the process of curating a personal statement, CV, and standing out during the interview process.
Dr. Hany Eskarous, MD
graduated from El Minya University, Egypt. He is one of our highly dedicated mentors. He has over a year tutoring experience and authored Step 2 notes of 1000 pages covering high Yield topics. He likes to guide students starting their USMLE journey until the match. He passed all steps with very high scores and is doing his residency in PA.
Dr. Ashley Sobel Leonard, MD, PhD
is a recent graduate of the Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) at Duke University School of Medicine. She is passionate about coaching medical students and young physician scientists to achieve their goals. Ashley is also very excited to pass on her knowledge and advice for residency application and interviews. She  matched at Pediatrics Residency Program at Seattle Children’s Hospital.
Dr. Stacey Thomas M.D, MBA
is a Caribbean medical graduate from Atlantic University School of Medicine and has an MBA from Walden University. After graduation she gained research experience at Mayo Clinic. She is a Family Medicine resident in Pennsylvania. She is excited to help and guide future residency applicants.
Dr. Raina Garg, MD
will be starting a Fellowship in the University of Toronto in the Department of Preventive Cardiology and Ambulatory Care. She completed an Internal Medicine Residency in Mount Sinai St. Luke’s West, New York in 2019 and is a Medical Graduate from Manipal University, India.  She is interested in Preventive Cardiology, Population Cardiovascular Genomics Research and Global Cardiovascular Health.  Since the beginning of her career journey, she has chosen a unique career path and have learned through her own successes and failures.  She enjoys sharing the tips and tricks that she picked up along the way.  Over the years, she has formed strong ties and collaborations and has successfully mentored other students and trainees.  Dr. Garg has a passion for working with mentees to find their strengths and weaknesses so that they can put their best foot forward during the Residency Match.
Dr. Luba Kats
is a psychiatry resident at Medical Colleges of Wisconsin and a graduate of West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine.  She worked with young children with developmental disabilities while earning her Masters in Physiology from Case Western Reserve University and is passionate about providing care to vulnerable patient populations in undeserved communities.
Dr Chintav Shah, MD
is a graduate from MVP DR Vasantrao Pawar Medical College Hospital and Research Center , Nashik.  He worked as a scribe for 2 years and gained  valuable clinical experience and knowledge of EMR which made his application stronger and he recently matched into University of Arkansas for medical science (UAMS),  Internal Medicine Program .He believes in the fact that if you want anything you can achieve it no matter what . He always wanted to help the IMG and very early on he made decision that if he matched he would contribute in any way to help IMG achieve their dream.
Pawan Khera, MS, MBA
is the Chief Mentor for all Sarthi students and has guided and coached over a thousand IMGs and Caribbean applicants match in residency programs as part of their USMLE journey. He is an Adjunct Faculty at Carnegie Mellon University and teaches MBA and Masters courses. Pawan He is a former Program Director and Admissions Committee Member, always passionate about helping students. He did his MS and MBA from Carnegie Mellon University.
Dr. Chad B. Cogan, M.D
is a goal-driven and passionate recent graduate from Chicago Medical School completing his Transitional Year in Internal Medicine at Weiss Memorial Hospital. Subsequently he will embark upon his Anesthesiology training at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Currently training along side roughly 100 foreign-born US physicians has provided Dr. Cogan with novel insight into the unique challenges facing IMGs wishing to train in The Unites States, and his recent experience as both an Internal Medicine and Anesthesiology residency applicant provides him with a holistic understanding of the residency match.
Dr. Joseph M. Kus, M.D
is a committed and driven graduate from the Chicago Medical School who has completed his Transitional Year at Amita Resurrection Hospital in Chicago. He is currently a Diagnostic Radiology resident at the Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, IL. Going through the residency application and interview process has given him great insight into what residency programs look for in an applicant. He has learned how to assemble an application and complete an interview that will make an impact on each program and will be able to pass along this information to new applicants.
Max Dibble
is a Journalist at the West Hawaii Today on the Big Island of Hawaii. He has been a professional reporter and editor covering news and sports for the last five years. Max has a B.A. in Communication Studies from the University of Iowa and a B.S. in Journalism from Iowa State University. He has been honored nationally, regionally and at a state level by several professional organizations including the Associated Press, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Columbia Scholastic Press Association and the Iowa Newspaper Association in the areas of feature writing, column writing and breaking news.
Lauren Hermann
is a licensed and certified medically-focused speech-language pathologist who has been practicing since 2012. She has in-depth experience with a variety of medical settings, including acute care, inpatient rehab, outpatient rehab, and private practice. Her husband is dual board-certified radiologist and pain physician who completed his trainings at University of Michigan & Stanford University. Lauren enjoys working with adults and finds communication to be one of the most overlooked gifts we have. In her free time, Lauren can be found writing books about speech therapy, riding her bike, listening to podcasts, and finding any excuse to travel (especially out of the country).
Makayla Tendall
is a journalist with Cedar Rapids Gazette. She has previously worked as a reporter and editor at her student newspaper at Iowa State University. She started post-graduate life as a reporter for Iowa's second-largest newspaper, where for two years she has reported on the news of the day and issues regarding social services in the state.
Tiffany DeMasters
is a journalist living on the Big Island in the state of Hawaii. Graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in journalism fro Southern Utah University, she has been working in journalism for nearly 15 years. She has been a reporter for two daily newspapers in Utah covering community, schools and crime. She also worked as a community reporter in Iowa at the Des Moines Register. For the past two years, she has been the cops and courts reporter at West Hawaii Today. She also has experience in broadcast journalism as an assignment desk editor and web producer from KSTU-Fox 13 in Salt Lake City, Utah. She has been recognized for her work by the Society of Professional Journalists as well as the Associated Press.
Douglas Carman
Our team has collaboration with immigration attorney, Douglas Carman. He has been practicing immigration and nationality law with a focus on physicians and scientists since 2004. He worked in a leading law firm in New York, and he opened his own practice in Philadelphia in 2011. He has a great deal of experience handling cases particular to international medical graduates, such as waivers of the foreign residence requirement, national interest waivers, and extraordinary ability immigrant petitions. Our students can get legal advice from Douglas and team at special discounted rates. More information about his office and his contact information are available here
Dr. Steve Shah, M.D
is a graduate from Medical University of Lublin, Poland. He is born and raised in Bombay, India and embarked upon his medical journey shortly after migrating to USA. Dr. Shah, has done extensive experience in research, teaching, mentoring students throughout his academic journey and finds this as his ultimate passion. He has published in research journals, presented at national conferences and has been awarded with Teacher of the Month for empowering his students. He previous completed GP residency in United Kingdom and is currently a Family Medicine resident in Michigan. His academic interests include aesthetic medicine, emergency medicine, ultrasound medicine and sports medicine. His personal interests include calligraphy, fountain pens and nature exploration. He is a highly energetic individual and is excited to help with your journey towards reaching success!
Dr. Achint Patel, MD, MPH
is an aspiring Clinical Researcher who has completed his medical school from NHL Municipal Medical College in Gujarat, India and Preliminary Medicine residency at University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. He has also completed Masters Public Health (MPH) specializing in Biostatistics from Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He has also worked as associate researcher at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He has been part of more than 50 research articles in indexed in PubMed and around 100 abstracts as oral or poster presentations at national level conferences.
He is excited and hopes to help upcoming applicants and current residents in learning the fundamentals of research methodology and publish research articles via launching course on hands on clinical research. His hobbies include adventure, yoga and travelling. More information about his research profile and publications is available on Google Scholar and at Research Gate.
Kirsten Johnson
is an award-winning journalist with more than a decade of professional writing experience. After completing a journalism degree with honors from the University of Washington in Seattle, Wash., she worked as a newspaper reporter at both the Idaho Falls Post Register in Idaho Falls, Idaho and the Hawaii Tribune-Herald in Hilo, Hawaii. She also has internship experience at several major media outlets including: KING-TV, Seattle’s NBC affiliate; Breaking News, a mobile application inside NBC news; the Seattle Times and the Puget Sound Business Journal. She currently freelances for several Seattle area media publications.
Dr. Raja Chandra Chakinala, MD
is a foreign medical graduate from NTRUHS, India.  He has always been very active  in guiding his fellow applicants on various USMLE platforms since the beginning of his journey. His elaborate 70 page PDF titled "A path to USMLE" detailing every little aspect from preparing for steps to matching into residency, is used as a handbook by residency aspirants. He graduated from a New York program in Internal Medicine and is currently working in PA. He is very excited in making a difference in match aspirants' applications by being a part of our group.
Stacey Smekofske
is an energetic, versatile, and responsive editor that helps authors craft compelling stories and build their influence. She graduated magna cum laude with a degree in communications and English from BYU Idaho and has been an educator and editor for over 18 years. She is a member of the Idaho Writers Guild, the Idaho Writers and Editors Association, the Northwest Editors Guild, and the American Copy Editors Society (ACES). She has a certificate in copy editing with Poynter University and ACES. Stacey has a myriad of life experiences and knowledge that allows her to edit many novel genres including memoir, business, and self-help. She has been independently working with USMLE applicants for years to help physicians achieve their dreams of residency in the US. She is excited to work with USMLE Sarthi to work with even more students. With fortitude and compassion, Stacey labors with zealous writers to produce passionate and inspiring writing.
Mitchell Bonds
has been an editor, designer, and occasional writer for local newspapers for 7 years, and helped produce student publications throughout his university career. In his spare time, he has written and edited two published fiction novels. This is his second year with our team.
Dr. Praneeth Reddy Keesari
is a young and dynamic USMLE aspirant from Hyderabad, India. He was the “ Best outgoing student” of his batch and has been continuing the same momentum since then. He scored 260+ in step 1 and 265+ in step 2 CK. He was involved in tutoring students for step 1 and mentoring many students through this USMLE journey. Besides his interest in teaching, he has actively collaborated with one of the internal medicine board reviews for medical research and developing software. He is a research enthusiast and has been a part of the USMLE Sarthi’s research team. His aim is to provide refined and coherent strategies to nail this USMLE path and also gain valuable experience from his peers and seniors at the USMLE Sarthi team.
Dr. Sukrut Pagad MD, AP
is an aspiring Internist who graduated from Oman Medical College, Oman. Sukrut has worked several months tutoring International Medical Graduates USMLE exams. Passionate to teach and provide care to the underserved community he is currently working at USMLESarthi as an advisor to seek opportunities that can help future applicants attain successful Residency. He is excited to be part of the team and hopes upcoming applicants will gain valuable insights on how to navigate Match successfully.
Dr. Shikha Kothari
is an aspiring pediatrician who graduated from Pramukhswami Medical College in Gujarat, India. As an international medical graduate born and brought up in the United States, she has exceptional interpersonal/communication skills and a diverse blend of cultural, academic and clinical experiences which enable her to work well with individuals from varied backgrounds. Shikha is active on various residency-related social media platforms and always eager to share her unique clinical experiences and cultural perspective with international medical graduates. She hopes to help upcoming applicants and current residents in transitioning to American culture and hospital etiquette, and is excited to launch a course in this regard. Her hobbies include singing, dancing and learning new languages.

Dr. Patrick Pathappillil, MD

​is an energetic and enthusiastic physician who graduated from Karpaga Vinayaga Institute of Medical Sciences, Tamil Nadu, India, and recently matched into St. Joseph’s Hospital, Creighton University, Phoenix, Arizona. He started his journey in 2016 and with his extensive experience working as an ER Physician for over 3 years, he was able to portray his dedication and commitment to his profession. He was able to build a strong CV with his experience in both US and Indian healthcare systems despite COVID-19 barriers that came his way. With his commitment to pursuing residency, he was able to acquire more than 20 interviews. As a result of his outstanding interview skills, he was offered a prematch offer which he turned down. It has always been a passion for him to help IMGs achieve their dreams as he understands the struggles that they go through. He believes if you are willing to put in hard work and with the right guidance, any hurdle that comes your way can be overcome.

Dr.Shawn Gupta,MD,MS

is a recent graduate of St. George's University and has a Master's degree in Biomedical Science from Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. Shawn spent days perfecting his application material in order to match into his top choice Internal Medicine program in New Jersey and he is committed to doing the same for you. Shawn is well-versed in the intricacies of the international medical graduate experience and can't wait to help you reach your goals!

Arati Bandgar, Office Manager

Arati is the nerve center of the team's Operations. She leads the administrative team and her duties include physician coordination, new hire onboarding, working with the IT team, clinical rotations and manages the class schedules and tools. She also fields any questions related to courses and services.

Payal Kumar

Is an MBA and a full time published Author, freelance content writer, columnist, writing coach, blogger and a former HR. She is currently based in Bangalore, Karnataka, India. During her thirteen years of stint as an HR Manager she has worked in sectors like hospitality, fashion retail and manufacturing. In this span of time she has contributed her written contents and articles on various social media platforms, magazines, job portals, institutional websites, press releases and literary platforms and has conducted creative / blog writing workshops for various educational institutions and  corporates in India. Payal is currently associated with USMLE SARTHI as a Content Creator; Marketing Expert wherein her involvement is the form of content creation and handling various social media and marketing platforms of USMLE SARTHI.

Abhiram Challa, M.D., PGY-1

is an energetic and ambitious individual. He spent his formative years in the thriving, multicultural city of Edison, New Jersey. Later, he moved closer to his roots in Hyderabd, India, where he completed high school. He pursued this passion through medical school which he completed in Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, Belgaum. After he indulged in a year of research on cardiovascular imaging in West Virginia University, He wishes to combine research and clinical care and contribute to the field of cardiology. His past experiences in India inspire him to ultimately give back to the community. His personal interests include basketball, guitar and keyboard, and going out with friends. He also spends his free time guiding IMGs with the USMLE process with his YouTube channel Dr. Challa.

Dr. Bharati Nikhare, MD,

is an international medical graduate from Dr. Vaishampayan Memorial Medical College, Solapur. Driven by passion and dedication to give back to the community, she has now secured a family medicine residency position in St John’s Episcopal Hospital in New York. She earned her MD and DNB in Anatomy from India, which ignited her interest in teaching and guiding medical students. Continuing the interest, she has worked as a lecturer at Pennsylvania State University. To pursue Family Medicine as her passion, she has been put to the test several times and has gone through a real roller coaster in her life. She believes that age is just a number and your hard work and dedication define you, not what others say. “No one can tell you what you can do and what you cannot!” She has learned the breadth of the whole USMLE journey through her own experience. Dr. Nikhare is now on our team to help out the future residents, especially those with the older years of graduation, repeat applicants, and average scorers.  

Jeanne Anderson

is an advisor and counselor dedicated to helping our students find the right fit within the USMLE Sarthi family. Jeanne received her undergraduate degree from BYU-I and is currently pursuing a Master of Arts in Marriage and Family Therapy from Northcentral University. Her background in business, coaching, and mental health offer a unique blend of experience and insights to provide the guidance needed for USMLE Sarthi students to choose the level of service and resources necessary to lead to a successful match.