Aparna Oltikar, M.D., an internal medicine hospitalist at Danbury Hospital, has been named chair of the Department of Medicine at Danbury Hospital and New Milford Hospital, both part of the Western Connecticut Health Network (WCHN). Danbury Hospital is one of two WCHN hospitals that serve as a clinical training sites for University of Vermont College of Medicine students. Oltikar has a UVM appointment as a clinical assistant professor of medicine.

Prior to joining Danbury Hospital in 2009, Oltikar worked in hospital medicine at Charlotte Hungerford Hospital in Torrington, Conn., and ran a Litchfield County, Conn.-based primary care practice for nearly 10 years. Board-certified in internal medicine, she is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians. Oltikar graduated first in her class from Weill Cornell Medical College and completed residency training in internal medicine at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, and served as chief medical resident at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.

As an attending physician in internal medicine, Oltikar has had numerous interactions with UVM medical students at Danbury Hospital. Supporting the academic mission is of primary importance to her.

“I am deeply committed to our residents and medical students and to making their experience here as meaningful and instructive as possible,” she says. “There is very little else that is more important to me.”

Oltikar looks forward to collaborating with her Burlington, Vt.-based colleagues on ways to better align the institutions and promote the educational experience at Danbury. She believes strongly that any physician can be trained to be a more effective educator. While a hospitalist, she spearheaded a faculty development program, which included a curriculum and toolkit that provides hospitalists with the skills to give feedback and create a learning environment that ensures students and residents have a positive learning experience.

“I came to this position in a backhanded way,” admits Oltikar. “In my private practice, I learned about the business and economics of medicine – case management, denial management – and I think that there is a real lack of attention given to this subject in the training of students and residents.”

She aims to create a curriculum that covers medical financing, regulatory issues, how physicians get paid and generate revenue, why decisions are made, and value-based purchasing.

“We do a disservice to our trainees when they don’t understand the broader structure in which they will practice,” she says. “Sometimes, the physician voice is the least loud voice at the table, because we’re busy doing patient care, etc. If we don’t advocate for maintaining the integrity of the doctor-patient relationship, it will get chipped away. We need to instill in our students that they are stewards of this profession – they need to be advocates.”

With the new academic year starting later this month with the arrival of a new class of residents, Oltikar is eager to identify new ways to interact with the students, and hopes to begin a Professor’s Rounds. She also sees her distinctive position as the first chair of medicine who is a generalist – not subspecialty trained – as an opportunity to help advocate for the country’s sorely-needed primary care field, but believes the effort to fulfill this need is not going to be successful if every leadership role is filled by a fellowship-trained clinician.

“Danbury has taken a unique step putting me in a leadership position,” says Oltikar, who adds that the appointment sends the message that physicians can do anything they want to when they choose primary care.

Through her academic role, Oltikar would like “to help bring back the incredible importance and value of that generalist perspective,” which allows physicians to see patients beyond their symptoms, as individuals with families and jobs who contribute to their communities.

“I’m incredibly honored and excited to work with UVM medical students,” says Oltikar. “If they have questions, concerns or just want to chat, my door is open. They’re not an interruption – they are my work!”