Madhavi Bhargava ([email protected], [email protected])

Dr Madhavi Bhargava obtained her MBBS (1996) from PS Medical College, Karamsad, completed her Diploma in ENT from MS University, Vadodara (1999) to join as a founding member of Jan Swasthya Sahyog (People’s Health Support Group) in rural Bilaspur (Chhattisgarh). Her work (till 2009) here, as an impressionable young doctor, where predominantly indigenous people from the most marginalized communities accessed health care, has shaped her trajectory. She consciously despecialized to work as a primary care physician and a general surgeon and worked there for a decade.

Later, with 2 years of research exposure as a research assistant in the Clinical Epidemiology Department, McGill University, Montreal, she decided to do her second post-graduation in Community Medicine (2012-2015) and combine her newfound interest in research with past experiences in rural India.

She joined Community Medicine, Yenepoya Medical College, Mangalore in 2015 and continues to work there to date. Apart from routine teaching and training, she continues to focus on social determinants of health, adolescent and maternal nutrition, strengthening primary care, and investigating the links between undernutrition and TB. She also underwent training in bioethics at the Centre for Ethics, Yenepoya. She has led projects with UNICEF (India) and the Karnataka State TB Cell. She has successfully collaborated with the ICMR-NIN, ICMR — National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis, Central TB Division, FMES, Lady Irwin College, McGill University, LSHTM, and Boston University. She was the Co-PI of the RATIONS trial in Jharkhand, the results of which have influenced the revised WHO TB-Undernutrition guidelines of 2025.

Recently, she received the inaugural KV Desikan Award for her contributions in the field of infectious diseases in the most vulnerable of the communities. She is passionate about teaching and mentoring students in research and socially relevant pursuits.