Dr. Dharushana Muthulingam joined the Department of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases as an Instructor on July 1, 2019.
Dr. Muthulingam was born in London and grew up in the California desert. She received undergraduate training in both philosophy and molecular/cell biology at Berkeley. She went on to complete medical and public health (MS) degrees through the Joint Medical Program at the University of California in both Berkeley and San Francisco. During this time, she participated in PRIME-US, a track focused on medical care for underserved urban populations. She completed her internal medicine residency at the affiliated Kaiser Permanente Oakland Medical Center. During her infectious disease fellowship at Yale, she received clinical research methods training through fellowships in both Investigative Infectious Diseases and Interdisciplinary HIV Prevention at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS. She is board certified in Infectious Disease and Internal Medicine, with a plan to complete certification in Addiction Medicine. Her clinical and research interest focuses on infectious disease prevention and treatment among individuals with substance use disorders. Currently she is refining and testing a decision aid for opioid use disorder treatment and harm reduction practices, with interest in adapting this tool for a variety of institutional settings, such as within the criminal justice system, emergency department, hospitalization, and syringe exchange programs. She also has a long-standing interest in medical humanities throughout medical training and was invited to participate in the Yale Internal Medicine Writer’s Workshop. Professional interests also include health disparities, patient preferences, shared decision making, implementation science, healthcare utilization, and medical education. In addition to enjoying time with family, extra-professional interests include science fiction, hiking and capoeira.