Föreläsningar och seminarier Biological Windows looking into Wellness for Mothers, Infants, & Children

Professor Sunny Anand, Stanford University, CA

Dr. Kanwaljeet Singh (“Sunny”) Anand is an award-winning physician, research scientist, child health advocate, and public health activist with a career-long dedication to improving the lives of children and parents.  He currently serves as a Nominating Member for the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology.

Dr. Anand graduated from M.G.M. Medical College, University of Indore (India), received the D.Phil. degree as a Rhodes Scholar at the University of Oxford (UK), followed by a post-doctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School, Pediatric residency training at Boston Children’s Hospital, and Pediatric Critical Care Medicine fellowship training at the Massachusetts General Hospital (both affiliated with Harvard University) in Boston, MA. 

Dr. Anand’s early career was dedicated to eliminating the experiences of pain, stress, and trauma from the lives of infants and young children. His research led to the first discovery of pain in the newborn and fetus, transforming the practice of anesthesia/analgesia in infancy.  For this, he received the Dr. Michael Blacow Award from British Paediatric Association (1986), Pediatric Resident Research Award from American Academy of Pediatrics (1992), the inaugural Young Investigator Award in Pediatric Pain from International Association for Study of Pain (1994), the Jeffrey Lawson Award for Children’s Advocacy from American Pain Society (2000), the 2009 Nils Rosén von Rosenstein Award^[1] from Swedish Academy of Medicine, Honorary Doctorate in Medicine from Örebro University (Sweden, 2019) and various other awards.  He presented the 9^th Annual “In Praise of Medicine” Keynote Oration at the Erasmus University Medical Center Centennial in Rotterdam (2013), the Journées Nationales de Néonatologie Keynote Address at the Pasteur Institute in Paris (2015), among many other prestigious lectures. 

Realizing that uninsured people have poor health outcomes, Dr. Anand launched the Harmony Health Clinic in Little Rock, Arkansas in 2008, to provide free medical and dental care to the uninsured in Arkansas.  In January 2019, he helped launch another free clinic for women & children in Clarksdale, serving Mississippi’s poorest.  He received community service awards from the National Conference for Community & Justice (the Father Joseph Biltz Award, 2007), the Governor of Arkansas (Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “Salute to Greatness” Individual Award, 2008), the Rotary Club International (2010), the Tennessee State General Assembly (2011), and other bodies, including the Nightingale Excellence Award for Physicians from Stanford Children’s Healthcare in 2016. 

Noting that critically ill Latinx children had 3-fold higher mortality rates than matched patients, Dr. Anand initiated the first-ever multi-level healthcare intervention to eliminate healthcare disparities across ethnic groups, revealing local healthcare strategies to reduce health inequities. He was appointed as Professor of Pediatrics & Anesthesiology at Stanford University in 2015, where he directs the Child Wellness Laboratory and the Jackson Vaughan Research Fund. His current research helps support children exposed to chronic stress and social isolation in early childhood.  Dr. Anand has chaired and served on several NIH Study Sections, American Board of Pediatrics, FDA Advisory Council for Anesthesia & Life-saving Drugs, and others.  He has published over 300 peer-reviewed articles in leading medical and scientific journals, edited 9 books/journal issues, testified before the US Supreme Court, the British Parliament, and US House & Senate Committees.  He provides ICU care for critically ill children, and helps reduce the global burden of congenital heart disease in India and other developing countries.  His research work has been reported on Fox News, CNN, BBC, MSNBC, ABC News, PBS, The New York Times, The Washington Post, LA Times, The Times of London, Daily Mail, and many newspapers; and it has been profiled in numerous books including Ghosts from the Nursery, Scared Sick, Infant Memory, and others. 

Recognizing that 70% of the world’s poorest are villagers, Dr. Anand has organized the Ideal Village Conferences at Stanford annually since 2016, dedicated to improving the lives of villagers across the world by creating holistic and collaborative solutions to eliminate rural poverty.  Ideal Village programs have already improved the lives of innumerable rural families and communities in India, the US, and other low- or middle-income countries (LMICs).

^[1]The Nils Rosén von Rosenstein Award is considered the highest international award in the field of Pediatrics, awarded jointly by Swedish Academy of Medicine & Swedish Pediatric Society every 5 years. Only five US physicians have ever received this award.