Bhushan Katira, MBBS, comes to us from Toronto, along with his son Vedaant and wife Nupur.

Katira is originally from India and grew up in Mumbai. Born to a teacher mother and a doctor father, Katira inherited his love for medicine and teaching. Impressed by his father’s medical practice and a drive to help others, Katira decided to pursue medical education. He graduated from the University of Mumbai with rigorous training in basic and clinical sciences and completed his residency at B. J. Wadia Hospital for Children, a premiere institute in Mumbai and developed interest in tropical diseases. However, his fascination for clinical physiology, bedside technology and fulfillment in caring for the sickest children, brought Katira to critical care medicine. He completed his clinical training in critical care at B. J. Wadia Hospital, Mumbai and subsequently at Hospital for Sick Children (SICKKIDS), University of Toronto, Toronto.

It is at SICKKIDS that Katira met late Brian Kavanagh, MD, and was impressed with his vision and work on the science of acute lung injury from respiratory devices, also called as ventilator-induced lung injury (VILI). It was at Kavanagh’s laboratory that Katira discovered his passion for translational research and understood the importance of asking the right question and diving deep to find the answers. Katira has spent over six years at Kavanagh’s lab studying vascular forces involved in the formation of VILI and developing further methods of lung protection from VILI especially the application of prone positioning, use of electrical impedance tomography and esophageal balloon manometry.

At the bedside, Katira enjoys teaching physiology and clinical decision making and most importantly interacting with the multidisciplinary team. At WashU, Katira plans to set up a laboratory for translational critical care research especially using large animal models and thereby developing testable hypotheses for clinical research.

As a child, Katira enjoyed elocution, theatre and debating, which he thinks has helped him develop critical and analytical thinking as well as proficient teaching and presentation skills. While science and mathematics were his favorite subjects, he enjoyed studying Sanskrit and the ancient practice and science of yoga. Outside of work Katira, loves to spend time with his family and continues to explore Sanskrit and ancient Vedic literature as well as developing his photography and culinary skills.