Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center
Advaita Punjala-Patel is a third year Maternal-Fetal Medicine fellow at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist in Winston Salem, NC. She grew up in North Carolina and went to college at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Biology and Psychology. She then attended Virginia Commonwealth University for medical school and fell in love with the field of obstetrics and gynecology. She completed her residency training at the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta, GA and is excited to be back home in North Carolina for fellowship. Her passion for obstetrics, specifically high risk maternal-fetal care, started in Georgia during her residency training where she learned first-hand how the lack of access for rural and low socioeconomic groups significantly increased maternal mortality and morbidity. She is looking forward to a rewarding career in maternal-fetal medicine where she can help combat health disparities and promote advocacy. As a new mother herself, Advaita truly feels like the fourth trimester of pregnancy is the most important trimester as it is a time where mothers are lost to follow up leading to preventable detrimental maternal health outcomes. Her research interests include promoting the fourth trimester, novel approaches to postpartum pain management, maternal sleep and its impact on fetal outcomes, and genetics.