MEMBERS
DR. Who
MEMBER SPOTLIGHT
SUNANA SOHI, MD
Aaron Burch
M
edicine has been a part of Dr. Sunana Sohi’s family
for decades.
Her father, Dr. Gurbachan Sohi, has practiced
cardiology in Louisville since the 1970s when he
emigrated from India with his wife, Indu Sohi, Ph.D.
Together, they instilled a love of caring for others in their two
children: Sunana, a gastroenterologist and her older brother, Dr.
Sameet Sohi, an otolaryngologist.
“My parents have such an amazing story,” she said. “My dad didn’t
go to school until he was 11. He was illiterate. He eventually became
a physician with help from his sister. He came here in the 1960s and
trained in Michigan, then went back to India. After he married my
mom, they moved to Chicago and then in the 1970s he moved here
to practice and work as faculty at the UofL School of Medicine. I
think it would be extremely hard to leave your family and everyone
you know for a new country, but they did it.”
As the Sohi's built a life in Louisville, they introduced their young
children to the world of medicine. “I remember sitting in the lab at
probably five or six years old. I was sitting behind the leaded glass
watching my dad float a catheter,” Dr. Sohi recalled. “I grew up in
the hospital, and I always had an aptitude for science. So, I knew
pretty early on that I wanted to be a doctor. It was comfortable and
easy to know how to get where I wanted to go. It wasn’t easy to get
there, but I knew the path.”
In her childhood years, most of Dr. Sohi’s free time was devoted
to reading. “I read so much. We’d go on family vacations, pile in the
back of the station wagon and I’d just read. We’d pull over and they
would have to buy me new books,” she laughed. “My dad would say,
‘Look, there’s Mt. Rushmore!’ and I’d just be looking down, saying
‘Uh huh, uh huh.’ I still read that way. I can’t put books down.”
Education was essential for their upbringing. So, when the family
visited Harvard University, it became a goal for both children to
attend the prestigious institution. “I was awed by it, and my family
was awed by it. Then my brother went there, and my family…we’re
kind of overachievers, so I knew I wanted to attend too.”
Moving to Boston and attending Harvard at age 18 brought on
homesickness, but the transition was a fun and fruitful one. Dr. Sohi
studied psychology as a major through her undergraduate years. It
was in Boston she met her future husband, Dr. Gregory Sulkowski.
They became engaged her first year of medical school and were
married in 2004 at the Olmsted here in Louisville.
“It was a beautiful wedding. He’s Polish-Catholic, so we had a
mixed ceremony,” Dr. Sohi said. “We had a Catholic ceremony at
the Cathedral of the Assumption. Then we had the Indian ceremony.
Typically, Indian weddings are fun and fabulous and huge. In India,
they may go on for weeks. We crammed everything into two days,
but it was super fun. My husband rode in on a white horse!”
After a year at the UofL School of Medicine, Dr. Sohi traveled
back to Boston in 2001 to be with her husband who was studying at
Harvard. There, she completed medical school at Tufts University
with an interest in internal medicine. It became a perfect fit for Dr.
Sohi, leading naturally into a gastroenterology subspecialty.
“I like doing things with my hands, but I also like th