Based in Wichita, Kansas, Dasa Gangadhar, MD, was an ophthalmologist and partner at Grene Vision Group since 1994 and was a clinical assistant professor of surgery for the KU School of Medicine. He received his Doctor of Medicine from Albany Medical College in Albany, New York, where he also completed his internship. Dr. Gangadhar completed his residency at the University of Michigan W.K. Kellogg Eye Center in Ann Arbor and his fellowship at Harvard Medical School’s Massachusetts Eye & Ear Infirmary. He was also a research fellow at the Schepens Eye Research Institute in Boston. Among his many local and national honors and awards, Dr. Gangadhar was selected as one of the “Best Doctors in America” by Consumers’ Research Council of America from 2001-2018 consecutively. He was one of the founding members of the KHSC Board of Trustees, and now serves as a faculty member for the proposed Kansas College of Osteopathic Medicine (KansasCOM).

Why are you proud to be a part of KHSC and the proposed KansasCOM?

I am proud to be part of something big and something that will have a positive impact on the community, the people, and education for generations to come. It’s fun and exciting to be on the ground floor with great people.

What impact do you think the establishment of the proposed KansasCOM will have on communities across Kansas?

There will be a huge positive economic impact for downtown Wichita. However, the greatest impact, I believe, will be for rural Kansas. Shortages of medical care exist in much of rural Kansas. KHSC aspires to ease this shortage of primary care and specialty care for our state by training the physicians of tomorrow, many of whom will make rural Kansas their home.

From your own personal career, what accomplishment are you most proud of?

I am proud of serving the great people of Kansas, especially rural Kansans and our great veterans for more than 25 years. Having performed over 30,000 operations now, I have had the privilege of touching many lives.

More recently, I completed an Executive Master’s Program in Health Care Leadership at Brown University. I hope to participate in the transformation of our health care delivery apparatus, as our current system fails too many and costs too much. KHSC and the proposed KansasCOM fit into this mission for the next chapter of my career.

Check out this op-ed Dr. Gangadhar wrote for The Wichita Eagle.