Dr. Kuriti with husband Vinay and daughter Maanvi“ Life has its ups and downs, but with these two by my side, every adventure feels possible.”
Efficiency meant seeing more patients and earning stronger evaluations from attendings.
Even small cultural habits required recalibration.“ Simple cultural things like the‘ Indian nod,’ which looks to the American eye as a‘ no,’ but we were really saying‘ yes’… we had to consciously stop ourselves from doing it to avoid confusion.”
Following medical school, Vinay had long dreamed of practicing in the U. S. Knowing they planned to marry one day, Dr. Kuriti made the leap with him, despite some cultural hesitancy.
“ For many Indians 15 years ago, love marriage was not something that parents were very thrilled about,” she explained.“ We wanted to show that we were settled financially and job-wise and that we were serious about each other.”
For residency, Vinay matched in internal medicine at the University of Connecticut and Dr. Kuriti matched in internal medicine at St. Elizabeth’ s Medical Center affiliated with Tufts University School of Medicine( now Boston Medical Center – Brighton). Their intern year was very busy, trying to understand new systems and be strong interns. In their second year of residency, they got married and moved their home to Franklin, Massachusetts, on the outskirts of Boston, and would drive to and from their residency programs daily.“ The irony was, he used to reach Connecticut before I would reach Boston, even though I was in Boston, because the traffic was so bad. The two years that we were commuting, it was a nightmare.”
Dr. Kuriti’ s eventual specialty choice was shaped as much by foresight as by interest. While her husband was drawn to the intensity of pulmonary critical care, she deliberately sought balance.
“ We knew he would be busy with call, night shifts and just have a very busy schedule,” she said.“ I decided that I wanted my schedule to be the opposite, so that we could make sure we had a balance and had family time.”
She considered several outpatient-focused specialties but found herself drawn to endocrinology’ s preventive power.
“ You can make a difference if you control the disease sooner than later,” she said. The field also aligned with global health realities.“ I also knew that there would be a strong patient population in India, on the chance that we ever ended up back home.”
After doing a couple’ s match for fellowship – he in pulmonary critical care, she in endocrinology – they arrived in Louisville expecting it to be temporary.
“ When we came to Louisville, we thought we’ d complete our fellowship and go onto the next place and our next journey,” she said. Instead, something unexpected happened.“ We fell in love with the place and the people and developed relationships. We are very settled here now.”
Her early post-training years were spent with Baptist Health in Louisville and Floyd County, Indiana, where she built a broad clinical foundation. She remained with the same system for nearly
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