Koushik Kassanagotu

As a Johns Hopkins resident, Koushik Kassanagotu focuses on rural healthcare and treating preventable diseases.
As a Johns Hopkins resident, Koushik Kassanagotu focuses on rural healthcare and treating preventable diseases.

As the conversation on healthcare continues to heat up on national and local scales, innovative minds like Koushik Kasanagottu are dedicated to entering the primary care field and changing the narrative of healthcare infrastructure and availability in the United States.

Kasanagottu’s medical career is dedicated to focusing on rural areas with inadequate healthcare providers, and finding innovative solutions to instill preventative healthcare and eradicate common preventable diseases such as diabetes and hypertension.

“The number one cause of death in the United States is heart disease, and it is a preventable illness,” Kasanagottu said. “Our healthcare infrastructure is not set up to be a preventive system. We need to invest in healthcare that affects the source of our major illnesses and chronic diseases, and fund programs such as nutrition counseling, exercise physiology, counseling services, mindfulness training, etc. to create a support network for patients to make it easier for them to switch to a healthier lifestyle.”

As a Johns Hopkin’s Bayview resident, which has a mere 3.9 percent admittance rate, Koushik Kasanagottu, a 2014 alumnus who graduated in biology, will be working alongside the brightest minds as he pursues his residency.

“Hopkins Bayview is especially equipped to educate residents about not only the medicine but also about public health issues and contemporary solutions,” Kasanagottu said. “This environment will allow me to come up with innovative solutions to healthcare difficulties that Alabamians specifically in rural communities face every day. I hope to have the opportunity to come back to Alabama and implement these solutions.”