Shwetha Kochi is originally from Washington, DC. She attended Virginia Commonwealth University for college with a full merit Presidential Scholarship, where she majored in Chemistry with a concentration in Biochemistry, and worked as a teaching assistant for the chemistry department as well as a math, biology, and chemistry tutor at the Campus Learning Center. While at VCU, Shwetha engaged in a variety of premedical initiatives: First, she and a co-founder started the MEDLIFE chapter at VCU, where they completed two medical service trips to Peru and Ecuador. Additionally, she worked on Parkinson’s research in a degenerative disorder research lab, analyzing inhibition of alpha synuclein aggregation using promazine derivatives. Lastly, she worked as a scribe with ScribeAmerica in various medical specialties including Family Medicine, Emergency Medicine, and Orthopedic Surgery.
After her undergraduate studies, she enrolled at Georgetown School of Medicine. While at Georgetown, Shwetha performed computational clinical research, focusing on using machine learning to predict outcomes after transcatheter aortic valve replacements (TAVR), including specific analysis of new-onset atrial fibrillation. She has many publications and has presented at national and international conferences. She also took on many leadership positions including President of the Cardiology Interest Group, President of the American Medical Association chapter, and Asylum Clinic Coordinator of Physicians for Human Rights. During her time in medical school, Shwetha started a podcast called Beyond the Rx, which focused on issues in medicine and healthcare systems in the US, and later included episodes on career development and advice to premedical and medical students. It was at this point where she realized her desire to get involved with mentorship and medical education. Currently, she is going into General Surgery for her residency with the goal of becoming a Surgical Oncologist who performs large-data AI and machine learning clinical research and works on various medical education initiatives with the end goal of becoming Chief of Surgery, Program Director of a residency program, or being in Medical School Faculty.
