The Scheie Eye Institute welcomes Rithambara (Rithu) Ramachandran, MD, MSc, an Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Ramachandran completed her undergraduate degree at Columbia University, where she majored in Neuroscience and Behavior with a minor in Applied Statistics. Prior to medical school, she gained a wide range of experience, working as a researcher, ophthalmic technician, volunteer data analyst, and Fulbright Scholar teaching English in India. She then earned her Medical Doctorate and completed her ophthalmology residency at the New York University Grossman School of Medicine, participating in the prestigious accelerated three-year MD program.
Dr. Ramachandran's interest in using imaging technology for disease detection and monitoring began during her undergraduate years, working with Dr. Donald Hood, and continued through her residency under the mentorship of Dr. Lama Al-Aswad. However, it was her time caring for patients at Bellevue Hospital, New York City’s largest safety-net hospital, that deeply shaped her understanding of how social determinants and neighborhood-level factors impact health outcomes. "It was always heartbreaking to see patients come in for their first eye exam, asking for glasses, only to be told they had end-stage glaucoma. When we think about early preventive health, eye health must be part of the conversation. We need to identify individuals at high risk for blindness and establish routine care to mitigate the personal and economic burden of vision loss. Unfortunately, the challenges and barriers to receiving consistent eye care are significant—lack of integration into the medical system, our complex insurance system, lack of education, limited access to providers, and our field’s reliance on expensive and cumbersome technologies to name a few. So, how do we even start to address these challenges?"
After completing her residency, Dr. Ramachandran undertook a two-year glaucoma clinical research fellowship at the University of Michigan's Kellogg Eye Center, under the mentorship of Dr. Paula Anne Newman-Casey. During this fellowship, she also earned a Master’s in Healthcare and Healthcare Research through the Institute for Healthcare Policy & Innovation’s Scholars Program. Her primary research focus is on identifying barriers to eye care screening in high-risk communities, with the goal of using innovative technologies to design and implement scalable, sustainable community-based programs. To further her work, Dr. Ramachandran aims to develop expertise in community-based care and implementation science, leveraging the resources and educational opportunities available at Penn.
Outside of her academic and clinical work, Dr. Ramachandran enjoys snuggling with her dog, Raisin, dancing to the latest Bollywood music, embarking on new knitting and crocheting projects, and volunteering annually at the Sundance Film Festival.