As director of Northwell Health’s Center for Gun Violence Prevention, Chethan Sathya, MD, oversees the health system’s expansive approach to firearm injury and mortality prevention. Northwell, which established the center as the first of its kind in 2019, has taken a public health approach to gun violence, focusing on key areas such as research, education (health care workers, nurses, medical students, residents), advocacy and community engagement.
Dr. Sathya is a powerful voice and advocate for firearm injury prevention. His role as a pediatric trauma surgeon exposed him to the dramatic and irresponsible results of gun violence, which has fueled his passion to find solutions to the national issue. Among his goals, Dr. Sathya is leveraging Northwell’s diverse patient population and wide reach to implement preventative strategies and perform high-level research. He has presented on gun violence prevention in various forums and in top media outlets such as CNN, Scientific American, The Washington Post, CBC and Huffington Post, among others.
Dr. Sathya also serves as associate trauma director at Cohen Children’s and he’s an assistant professor of surgery and pediatrics at the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell. He completed medical school and general surgery training at the University of Toronto, followed by Pediatric Surgery Fellowship at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago. He also holds a master’s in clinical epidemiology from the University of Toronto, in addition to completing a fellowship in global journalism at the Munk School of Global Affairs in Toronto. He is active in trauma research and works closely with the American College of Surgeons on trauma quality improvement initiatives.
During his clinical training in Chicago, he treated numerous children and babies with firearm injuries and now continues to do the same in New York. As a surgeon-journalist with firsthand experience pulling bullets out of children – many of who die – Dr. Sathya has a unique perspective and deep routed passion in telling the stories of children affected by gun violence.
He has been an invited speaker at a number of prestigious events, including the American Hospital Association Leadership Summit on Violence Prevention and the Healthcare Association of New York State symposium on best practices in gun violence prevention, where he was the keynote speaker. He’s also a consultant to the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma, serving as a core member of the Trauma Quality Improvement Program (TQIP) taskforce and the national firearm injury data collection initiative. Dr. Sathya also serves as a member of the Canadian Doctors for Protection from Guns Executive Committee.