ftÇàÉá{ WA f{tÜÅt? `W LAKSHMI DEVI AND DEVRAJ SHARMA ENDOWED CHAIR IN , GYNECOLOGY AND WOMEN’S HEALTH AT THE UH MĀNOA JOHN A. BURNS SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

REASON FOR THE GIFT Endowed faculty members are the hallmark of a great institution. Outstanding universities are able to grow and maintain centers of educational excellence and research achievement because of their exceptional faculty. The prestige of such positions enhances a university’s ability to attract, retain and reward outstanding faculty. Likewise for the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Women’s Health at the John A. Burns School of Medicine, investment from private donors is essential to meeting the challenges of strategic recruitment and retention of the best minds in the field of obstetrics, gynecology and women’s health.

Santosh D. Sharma, MD, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Women’s Health at the John A. Burns School of Medicine (“JABSOM”) is making this gift in gratitude and in honor of her parents, Lakshmi Devi and Devraj C. Sharma, for their commitment to her education and personal growth as a young female growing up in Kenya, Africa, at a time when young women had little access to higher education. Thanks to their support and guidance, Dr. Sharma was able to complete her medical degree and pursue a rewarding and varied career as an accomplished and physician-scientist in the field of obstetrics/gynecology.

After serving on the faculty of the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Women’s Health at JABSOM for 35 years and in honor of the upcoming celebration of the medical school’s 50th anniversary in 2015, Dr. Sharma has decided to make a major investment in the future of the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Women’s Health at JABSOM. Dr. Sharma knows firsthand the vital role played by the department’s faculty, residents, fellows, and medical students in advancing the health of women, fetuses, infants, and families in Hawai‘i and the Pacific Basin. Dr. Sharma hopes her gift will inspire additional endowment gifts in support of the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Women’s Health; signal her support of former and current leadership of JABSOM and of the department; strengthen the educational, research and community outreach missions of the department; and help ensure a strong future for the department so that the State of Hawai‘i continues to benefit from having highly trained specialists in obstetrics, gynecology, and women’s health right here in the Islands.

ABOUT THE DONOR Dr. Santosh D. Sharma was born in Kisumu, Kenya, Africa and grew up on the banks of Lake Victoria. She is the third of eight children in her family. Dr. Sharma’s father was born in 1900 and moved from India to Kenya when he was 18 years old, at the end of World War I when the British Empire was building infrastructure in LAKSHMI DEVI AND DEVRAJ SHARMA ENDOWED CHAIR IN OBSTETRICS, GYNECOLOGY AND WOMEN’S HEALTH AT THE UH MĀNOA JOHN A. BURNS SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

Kenya and Uganda. He worked for the Kenya Uganda Railways and Harbors (KURH). Her mother was born in India in 1906 and moved to join her husband in Kenya around 1924.

Dr. Sharma went to the "Asian" school for girls in Kisumu. At that time, there were three different school systems in Kenya, a separate one each for "Whites", "Asians" and "Africans". Dr. Sharma convinced her father to allow her to start school when she was five years old. She later again broke barriers for young women by having her father help her to enroll in the Kisumu Boys’ High School since there was no girls’ high school in Kisumu at the time. After doing very well in her initial years and successfully completing Form 1 at the girls’ school, she applied to join Form 2 in the boys’ school. The boys’ school authorities wanted her to start in Form 1 instead of Form 2, however, because they didn’t feel the girls’ school curriculum was as rigorous. This was problematic for Dr. Sharma since she knew she was further advanced. The school sent her to be evaluated independently in Nairobi where her tests showed she was ready for Form 3. Because that would have been politically challenging in Kisumu, she attended Form 3 in Nairobi and then moved back to Kisumu for Form 4 (Senior Cambridge).

She did very well in her secondary school studies and was offered multiple scholarships in any field of her choice to attend different universities in the UK and India. She chose to pursue a seven-year course of study in medicine. After completing her medical degree at BJ Medical College in Pune, India, she returned to Kenya briefly, only to be encouraged to go to the UK to complete her internship and . At the time, she was particularly interested in pathology. She had two great mentors during her residency training: "Mr. Gunn" and Mr. Madden. Surgeons and OB/GYNs were called "Mister" instead of "Doctor" in those days. Mr. Gunn was the chairman of the Royal College of OB/GYNs in . Dr. Sharma was asked to assist him one afternoon a week during one of her surgical rotations. Mr. Gunn increasingly engaged her in caring for his patients and encouraged her to become an OB/GYN. She thought she was still interested in pathology, so he arranged for her to do a two week introductory rotation in pathology. Much to her surprise, she found the practice of pathology was not as challenging as seeing patients as a clinician. So, after those two weeks, Dr. Sharma decided to pursue an OB/GYN specialty.

Dr. Sharma then spent almost four and a half years in Yorkshire under another great mentor, Mr. Stephen Madden, who kept finding new, more senior positions for her to fill at their hospital. Mr. Madden eventually encouraged her to apply to work for the World Health Organization in Uganda which, at the time, was serving as a key medical research hub in Africa. She was awarded the position and moved there in 1967 to conduct research on the role of prostaglandins in obstetrics/gynecology.

While there, she also served as the OB/GYN for two of Ugandan President Idi Amin’s wives. She witnessed the dangerous changes in the country as Idi Amin consolidated his power and decided to reward his military cronies by confiscating land, businesses, and property from Asians, primarily those of Indian descent. Dr. Sharma fully realized there were issues, when a full three-day conference was devoted to "Why Indian women won’t marry Africans." She was advised to leave the country, but at first, she dismissed the notion. As the disappearances became commonplace, and people became fearful, others helped convince her to leave. While she was at a U.S. Aid for International Development (USAID) research conference on prostaglandins in New York, several of her colleagues finally convinced her that she needed to leave Uganda, and they offered to help her get a visa to work in the U.S. She insisted on a permanent visa which she was told could take two to five years to obtain. She

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LAKSHMI DEVI AND DEVRAJ SHARMA ENDOWED CHAIR IN OBSTETRICS, GYNECOLOGY AND WOMEN’S HEALTH AT THE UH MĀNOA JOHN A. BURNS SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

was fine with that timing because she was in the middle of a multi-million dollar research grant. The visa was finalized in a record four months, however. In order to leave Uganda permanently, she applied to go to a "conference" in the U.S., leaving her banking account untouched in Uganda so as not to arouse suspicion about her departure. She left in February 1972. Just a few months later, Idi Amin announced that all "Asians" needed to leave the country. Dr. Sharma had gotten out just in time.

Dr. Sharma then served two years on the faculty at Howard University Freedman’s Hospital in Washington, D.C., as an Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology. While working in D.C., Dr. Sharma was recruited to become a faculty member at the new University of Hawai‘i John A. Burns School of Medicine by then dean, Terry Rogers, PhD, and then chair of the OB/GYN Department, Ralph Hale, MD. While considering the offer, her car got stuck in a snow bank in the D.C. area, and that clinched her decision to move to Hawai‘i. Dr. Sharma had never liked living in cold weather.

Dr. Sharma joined the faculty of JABSOM on February 15, 1974 as an Associate Professor, working at Kapi‘olani Medical Center for Women and Children. In 1976, Dr. Sharma became Director of the Colposcopy and Laser Clinic, and in 1978, she was promoted to the rank of Professor and appointed Vice Chairperson of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Dr. Sharma took responsibility for developing the entire oncology teaching program for the department out of her commitment to ensuring that JABSOM medical students received exposure to all aspects of the OB/GYN specialty. In addition, she continued to cultivate an international reputation as a researcher in the field of prostaglandins. Working closely with a PhD colleague, Dr. Sharma was among the first researchers to utilize prostaglandins in women. Because of this innovative work, Dr. Sharma helped the University of Hawai‘i gain recognition as one of the outstanding centers of clinical research in the United States.

Dr. Sharma remained Vice Chairperson of the Department of OB/GYN for 23 years until 2001. While at JABSOM, Dr. Sharma served on the Committee on Human Studies, the Tenure Promotion Review Committee, and served five three-year terms on the Admissions Committee.

Dr. Sharma retired from private practice in 2000 and from the faculty at JABSOM on December 30, 2005 after 31 years of service. She continued to help the department part-time for three years and was then awarded Professor Emeritus status.

Today, Dr. Sharma’s brothers and sisters are scattered throughout the world and all are very accomplished in their own right. It’s clear her parents valued education and encouraged their children to excel. Her parents eventually left Kenya and retired in England. She has three brothers and sisters living in the UK, three siblings in the U.S. and just one sister and one nephew who live in Nairobi, Kenya.

ABOUT THE DEPARTMENT Faculty members of the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Women’s Health at the John A. Burns School of Medicine have been caring for the women of Hawai‘i and the Pacific Basin for almost half a century and were among the original three visionary leaders who established the John A. Burns School of Medicine in 1965.

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LAKSHMI DEVI AND DEVRAJ SHARMA ENDOWED CHAIR IN OBSTETRICS, GYNECOLOGY AND WOMEN’S HEALTH AT THE UH MĀNOA JOHN A. BURNS SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

After starting as an OB/GYN residency training program in the Mary Foster wing of Kapi‘olani Hospital, the Department has grown into one of the largest and strongest clinical departments of the John A. Burns School of Medicine at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. Currently, the department consists of 3 professor emeritus, 28 full-time, 4 part-time and 107 volunteer and adjunct faculty. The OB/GYN residency training program recently received two back-to-back five-year Residency Review Committee Accreditations (maximum period given to only 6-14% of programs nationwide). Former faculty include the recently retired Executive Vice President of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and the past chair of the Residency Review Committee (RRC) for OB/GYN of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), the accrediting body for OB/GYN Residency training programs nationwide. 77 graduates of this residency program are practicing throughout Hawai‘i as Obstetricians and Gynecologists or as subspecialists in Gynecologic Oncology, Urogynecology, Family Planning or Maternal Fetal Medicine. In addition, 11 graduates of the residency program have been recruited to serve as departmental faculty.

The department maintains a large, diverse faculty team which attends to a wide spectrum of health issues affecting women, fetuses, infants, and families. The department also offers two successful, nationally- recognized and accredited post-residency Fellowships in Maternal-Fetal Medicine and Family Planning. The Maternal-Fetal Medicine Fellowship trains highly needed but very difficult to recruit subspecialists for high risk pregnancies. The department’s faculty provides clinical care in areas which would otherwise not be as readily available in Hawai‘i, such as gynecologic oncology, pelvic medicine, minimally invasive surgery, substance use and family planning. The department oversees a large, active Residency program of 25 MD trainees as well as clerkship programs for medical students.

The department’s scholarly productivity reflects the scientific, educational, and clinical capacity of the department. Since 2008, the department faculty, fellows, residents, and staff have produced nearly 300 substantial papers, presentations, and abstracts in scientific and educational venues nationally and internationally. Several faculty members serve on editorial boards or as peer reviewers of prominent specialty peer-reviewed journals. They also serve as board examiners to certify practicing OB/GYN nationwide.

Most recently, the cover story of the most prestigious peer-reviewed journal, American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology featured discoveries made by the department’s team of faculty-scientists and fellows in the study of pre-term birth. The article, first-authored by one of the department’s fellows, earned national recognition in its advancement towards preventing pre-term births - the leading cause of newborn death in the United States. Other faculty members have recently been published in prestigious medical journals like Nature and Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA).

The department hosts annual national and international continuing education (CME) courses for community physicians, health care providers and partners, in areas such as General Obstetrics and Gynecology and Gynecologic Oncology, in addition to hosting its premiere bi-annual Hawai‘i Ultrasound Conference—a partnership with the internationally-renowned, Ian Donald Inter-University School of .

The department’s faculty members have served or still serve in prominent leadership positions nationally and internationally. Some of those organizations included the following: College of Obstetricians and Gynecologist,

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LAKSHMI DEVI AND DEVRAJ SHARMA ENDOWED CHAIR IN OBSTETRICS, GYNECOLOGY AND WOMEN’S HEALTH AT THE UH MĀNOA JOHN A. BURNS SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine, American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology, American Society for Pelvic Medicine and Reconstructive Surgery, American Menopause Society, Residency Review Committee, Gynecologic Oncology Group, World Association of Perinatal Medicine, Fetus as a Patient International Society, Ian Donald Inter-University School of Medical Ultrasound.

Through five physician offices (one at Kapi‘olani, two at Queens, one in Waipahu and one in Kona); four federally qualified health centers (Waianae Coast, Kalihi-Palama, Waimanalo Health, Waikiki Health); and five hospitals (Queen’s, Kapi‘olani, Straub, Wilcox Memorial, Maui Memorial), department faculty provide a wide range of highly specialized women’s health care in General Obstetrics and Gynecology, Maternal-Fetal Medicine, Obstetric and Gynecologic Ultrasound, Gynecologic Oncology, Gynecologic Urology and Pelvic Reconstructive Medicine, Menopause, Family Planning, and Reproductive Endocrinology.

In 2013, department faculty, fellows, and residents directly participated in approximately 2,400 deliveries of babies at partner hospitals, representing almost one third of all deliveries in the State of Hawai‘i, many of them high risk. The department’s expertise in high-risk pregnancy management, obstetrical and gynecological ultrasound, gynecologic oncology, prenatal care in substance abuse, robotic surgeries, family planning, urogynecology, and patient safety and quality improvement, have already had tremendous impact on the success of JABSOM and the quality of care received by patients in the State of Hawai‘i.

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