Life & Breath Scholar Award

The Life & Breath Foundation is passionate about furthering physician education for Sarcoidosis. There are too many stories of patients who go to their physician and find out that the physician has never even heard of sarcoidosis. To further this part of our mission, in 2022, Life & Breath founded the “Life & Breath Scholar Award”.

The Life & Breath Scholar Award award is awarded annually to pulmonary residents who are focusing their careers on the care and research of sarcoidosis. Each resident receives support from Life & Breath in return for working with our Clinical Advisory Board on our current projects. They gain valuable experience and build relationships with other experts in their desired field.

Life & Breath is helping develop these residents into future ambassadors for sarcoidosis as well as spreading the opportunity for quality care of patients. And who knows, one of our Life & Breath Scholars might be the one to find the cure for sarcoidosis…

Benefits for the Scholar

Real World experience in supporting chronic sarcoidosis patients
Experience in giving virtual educational videos
Ability to work with a diverse group of sarcoid experts and learn from them
Monetary Award to send the resident to a pulmonary conference

Benefits for Life & Breath

Helping educate the future generation of sarcoidosis experts and advocates
Scholars work with the CAB board on current medical projects to support patients

Meet the 2022 Life & Breath Scholars

We were so thankful to partner with Greater Baltimore Medical Center for the 2022-23 academic year. We had many great applicants and two stood out above the crowd. Meet Gina and Vignash, our 2022 Life & Breath Scholars

Dr. Harish is originally from Chicago, IL. He relocated to India as a teenager and completed medical school at the Vydehi Institute of Medical Sciences. While at Vydehi, he led a pulse polio drive, immunizing over 500 children.
After graduating from medical school, Dr. Harish joined the internal medicine residency program at Greater Baltimore Medical Center where he is currently in his third year. He is the recipient of the 2022 Life & Breath Scholar Award and has a keen interest in researching further therapeutic regimens for sarcoidosis. He is continuing on to pursue a Pulmonary and Critical Care Fellowship.
In his time away from work, Dr. Harish enjoys hiking and playing soccer. He is also a die-hard Arsenal Fan!

Dr. Gina Patel got her undergraduate degree from Virginia Tech in Finance and Biology. There she participated in a health brigade to Honduras, where she helped to serve over 1,100 patients over 4 days. She went on to receive her medical degree from St. George’s University in Grenada, and she joined the internal medicine residency program at Greater Baltimore Medical Center where she is currently a 2nd year resident. Given professional interests in pulmonary and critical care medicine, she is the recipient of the Life and Breath Scholar which aims to further help patients with sarcoidosis. In her time away from work, she enjoys traveling to countries with rich historical and cultural backgrounds and spending time with her husband and one year old daughter, who keeps her quite busy!